Even former President Donald Trump thinks the Alabama Supreme Court is off-base in its classification of frozen embryos in IVF clinic freezers as babies — that is, human beings legally unable to be discarded or otherwise harmed, with homicide being the potential punishment for such an act.
Trump, like other Republicans — even those who supported the Life at Conception Act (H.R.1011) codifying that life begins at “moment of fertilization” — saw the blowback Alabama received and swiftly proclaimed that IVF should remain available, despite the embryo “murder” that routinely occurs with the procedure.
Are embryos babies? There is much science that considers the issue of “viability” of a fetus, science which has traditionally been taken into consideration in legal settings when dealing with reproductive health and reproductive rights.
Now with the science being superseded in legal matters by religion — the Chief Justice in Alabama referenced the Bible in his ruling — comedian and writer Julia Clare is pushing a common sense distinction between babies and embryos, which while not a substitute for science is meant to jar people out of certain patterns of thinking. Call it the baby “freezer test.”
Putting a baby in a freezer would kill it, but freezing embryos keeps them alive. That's why an embryo isn't a baby. Hope that helps if you're very stupid <3
— Julia Claire (@ohJuliatweets) February 22, 2024
Clare’s formulation went viral, catapulting to more than ten million views. “Putting a baby in a freezer would kill it, but freezing embryos keeps them alive,” Clare writes. “That’s why an embryo isn’t a baby. Hope that helps if you’re very stupid.”
