Children As Accessories

As happens all too often, this morning I came across an article that was relevant to the first post, but—incredibly, because I really like the article—I mislaid it. I searched, but couldn’t come up with it, until now. The conclusion is especially worth drawing attention to, but the basic thesis is that the Alabama IVF case has already had ramifications for the GOP. This is simply a reflection of the deep divides in American society. Commenters on the earlier post maintained that this issue will have little practical effect on the coming election itself—an entirely defensible view. But the author presents an alternate view that is also worth considering: Hard data suggests that Big Fertility is a big and rapidly growing presence in American society, with a bigger constituency than the average person might suspect.

The Coming Clash Between Republicans vs. Hardliners On IVF

Behind the scenes, the battle lines are being drawn. Will it break the party? One TAC Contributing Editor shares her perspective

Nearly two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that human embryos are human. The ruling was consistent with existing Alabama law, to say nothing of natural law and divine law, and therefore, naturally, caused a ruckus. Following the ruling, the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and 125 of his colleagues in the lower chamber cosponsored a bill to echo the Alabama ruling in the national legislature: Human embryos are human, and cannot be discarded or destroyed at will. Immediately, several prominent Republicans, including Donald Trump, made a point of opposing their own party’s triumph. 

By Friday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had issued a press release condemning the ruling and urged senatorial candidates to do the same. In short order, Arizona’s Kari Lake obliged, writing that “IVF is extremely important for helping countless families experience the joy of parenthood. I oppose restrictions.” Donald Trump echoed the sentiment on Truth Social. Nikki Haley, the GOP’s also-ran 2024 presidential candidate, said that, while she personally agrees that human embryos are human, the State of Alabama may need to reconsider its laws.

Since these politicians appear to have already forgotten, it is worth noting that the opinion of the Alabama Supreme Court was not that IVF is, or even should be, illegal. The ruling treated consistency: If you make legal persons, you have to treat them as legal persons in all cases, not just when it is convenient to you.

Note that Republicans, rather than celebrating a victory of common sense and natural law that recognized the dignity of all human life, instead reflexively adopted the rationale of their opponents in the Transhumanist camp: Parenthood is about bringing “joy” to the parents—although that terminology is subject to criticism in our brave new transhumanist world that’s coming into being. It’s about a personal emotion, and facts of human nature shouldn’t intrude. Nor should the implications be voiced in polite company—such as, the canceling of women.

Now, since the author points out that the Alabama decision doesn’t outlaw IVF in principle, it’s also worth noting that the author does recognize that that could be the practical effect:

A routine IVF procedure typically includes destroying as many as half of the created embryos, whether due to defects, accidents, or the high price of storage. It is true, if it was not the point of the court, that banning embryo destruction does ban many of the practices of IVF clinics.

That’s what is causing the ruckus. The Alabama court—explicitly following Alabama law—is a challenge to the concept that children are an accessory in life. An accessory to be embraced if it brings you joy, but to be discarded if it brings another less welcome emotional reaction. Drawing attention to the fact that human embryos are precisely that—human—is definitely unwelcome in a society based on the ideology of self invention. And so the author points out:

Nevertheless, what is interesting in all of this is not simply how Republicans have willfully misdirected the conversation since the Alabama ruling, but that they feel so very threatened by the possibility of an ethical limit on assisted reproduction techniques. Clearly, they perceive their voters, their donors, or both, have an interest in keeping IVF unregulated. 

Any proposal that looks like it makes life harder for infertile couples is politically suicidal.

Because there is never supposed to be hardship or disappointment in life. Only the “joy” of our own choosing.

Popular support for IVF today includes more than heterosexual couples struggling to conceive, however, since the LGBT movement has sought to normalize every possible combination of persons under the word “family.” To limit the baby-making industry is to give hard answers to those who would like a chicken in every pot and a baby in every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender arm. The latter group does not comprise the majority of Republicans, but it does include several of them. Then there are the others: Women who delay childbearing are no longer a left-only phenomena. Sometimes the delay is intentional for the sake of career advancement, some of it a fallout of the battle between the sexes; much of it is tragic, but all of it is promised a solution in artificial reproduction. 

This is why Republicans are so flustered that human embryos should be legally defined as human. It is not merely because the concept of life beginning at conception sounds vaguely familiar to them, and they are wondering if they have heard of it before. It is because the number of men and women for whom IVF is desirable is several multiples of what it was just a few years ago, and growing. The $14 billion dollar fertility industry, in many ways the necessary corollary to the abortion industry, exists to make its fortune off those who cannot have children. It is projected to be worth $129 billion before the decade is up.

Both of these cohorts, those who freeze their eggs and those who buy the frozen eggs and sperm of others, are evidence of our modern approach to children as accessories. When I said as much on Twitter over the weekend, a few responders balked: Who wants a child as an accessory? Of course, that is precisely the point: Like any accessory, the decision to have children today boils down to mere personal preference. “Do you want children?” is wholly separate from the question of marriage, and the answer can now be affirmative even if you are a 45-year-old single woman or, much more concerningly, a transgender pedophile. Neither is possible without IVF. In order to separate childbearing from the role of women, it had to be separated from marriage, too. When you begin smashing delicate things, there is no telling what you might break.

Again, the slippery slope that nobody wants to acknowledge—”When you begin smashing delicate things, there is no telling what you might break.” The modern way is to just close our eyes and walk over the cliff edge, hoping that the fall won’t be fatal. But avoid hard reasoning that could force us into unwelcome principled decisions.