Since Alabama’s Supreme Court decided to classify fertilized embryos as living children under state law earlier this month, Republican officials have been scrambling to prove to voters that they support their right to access in vitro fertilization treatments.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) came out with a statement Friday night throwing his support behind the process used by a growing number of Americans to conceive their children.
“I believe the life of every single child has inestimable dignity and value. That is why I support IVF treatment, which has been a blessing for many moms and dads who have struggled with fertility,” Johnson said.
He went on to “applaud” Alabama legislators for “immediately working to protect life and ensure that IVF treatment is available to families throughout the state.”
But a look back at how Johnson has talked about reproductive health care suggests a much more complicated picture driven by ultraconservative theology.
Like many other anti-abortion politicians, Johnson has repeatedly said that he thinks abortion should be banned because he values human life. At a congressional hearing in November 2021, Johnson touted an extreme definition of “life” when he spoke in favor of a six-week abortion ban then recently passed in Texas.
“As the National Right to Life Committee summarizes so well, when a woman is pregnant, science tells us that the new life she carries is a completely separate and fully new human being from the moment of fertilization,” Johnson said at the time. (As The 19th News’ Amanda Becker noted, the question of when life begins is more of a religious one.)
He went on to tell a hearing witness — a medical professional who performs abortions — that a fetus “is as distinct and unique a separate human being as I am from you.”
The Alabama Supreme Court had a strikingly similar take, writing in its majority opinion on the IVF case that “an unborn child is a genetically unique human being whose…
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