{"id":54136,"date":"2024-03-16T15:57:11","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T22:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=54136"},"modified":"2024-03-16T15:57:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T22:57:11","slug":"learning-from-antiquity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2024\/03\/16\/learning-from-antiquity-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from Antiquity 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, it looks as though we in the United States need some help from the goddess Cybele, the goddess of childbirth<\/p>\n

It seems ironic that today, just as almost every other country in the world, including notoriously Roman Catholic countries like France and Ireland, has made abortion legal, and women may make their own medical choices and have bodiy autonomy, the United States is going backwards in time (though not as long as you might think. Abortion was never a political issue until sometime in the latter half of the 19th century the Pope at the time wrote an Encyclical condemning it.) It’s true that abortions were hard to get before that. But that probably was because so lttle was known about the female anatomy that there were no techniques for it – certainly no safe ones. Some doctors may have been influenced by the full version of the Hippocratic Oath, of course.<\/p>\n

And it’s even more ironic that the way they chose to justify this draconian action (or actions) puts a huge risk not only women, but also the practice of IVF, in vitro fertilization. You may or may not know anyone personally who has used this technique, often when all else failed, to produce a child (I believe Tammy Duckworth had to use it due to her combat injuries.) If not, this highly personal story should give you at least an idea of how complicated it is at every point – and how hypocritical the Republican Party is (as if you didn’t know).
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I\u2019m a political scientist, and the Alabama Supreme Court\u2019s IVF ruling turned me into a reproductive-rights<\/span> refugee<\/h1>\n
Spencer and Gabby Goidel hadn\u2019t planned to become activists.
\nSpencer and Gabby Goidel<\/span>, CC BY-ND<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Spencer Goidel<\/a>, Auburn University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The day before the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created and used for in vitro fertilization<\/a> are children, my wife, Gabby, and I were greenlighted by our doctors to begin the IVF process. We live in Alabama.<\/p>\n

That Friday evening, Feb. 16, 2024, unaware of the ruling, Gabby started taking her stimulation medications, worth roughly US$4,000 in total. We didn\u2019t hear about the decision until Sunday morning, Feb. 18. By then, she had taken four injections \u2013 or two doses \u2013 of each of the stimulation medications.<\/p>\n

For those who don\u2019t know, the IVF process is a winding journey<\/a> full of tests, bloodwork and bills. An IVF patient takes hormones for eight to 14 days to stimulate their ovaries to produce many mature eggs. The mature eggs are then retrieved via a minor surgical procedure and fertilized with sperm in a lab. The newly created embryos are monitored, sometimes biopsied and frozen for genetic testing, and then implanted, usually one at a time, in the uterus. From injection to implantation, one round of IVF takes four to eight weeks.<\/p>\n

IVF can be as stressful as it is exciting. However, the potential of having a successful pregnancy and our own child at the end of the process, we hoped, would make it all worth it. The decision by the Alabama Supreme Court threw our dreams up in the air.<\/p>\n

I study politics<\/a> \u2013 I don\u2019t practice it. I\u2019m not involved in state or local government. I\u2019m a scholar, not an activist or an advocate. But now one of the most intimate, personal events of our lives had been turned into a political event by the state\u2019s highest court. As a result, I became something else, too, which I had not been before: an activist.<\/p>\n

Making sense of the ruling<\/h2>\n

Throughout the process of creating, growing and testing embryos in a lab, as many as 50% to 70%<\/a> of embryos can be lost<\/a>. Similarly, in the preimplantation stage of natural pregnancies, many embryos don\u2019t survive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If embryos are children, as the court ruled, then fertility clinics and patients would be exposed to an immense amount of potential legal liability. Under this new framework, patients would be able to bring wrongful death suits against doctors for the normal failures of embryos in the testing or implantation phase. Doctors would either have to charge more for an already expensive procedure to cover massive legal-insurance costs or avoid IVF altogether.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Lab staff at an in vitro fertilization lab extract cells from embryos that are then checked for viability.<\/span>
\nAP Photo\/Michael Wyke<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The decision and its implication \u2013 that IVF could not continue in the state of Alabama \u2013 felt like a personal affront to us. We were infuriated to have this uncertainty injected into the process three days into injecting IVF medication.<\/p>\n

While the decision clearly imperiled the future of IVF in Alabama, it was not clear to us whether we would be allowed to continue the process we had begun. We were left completely in the dark for the next four days. Gabby and I had no choice but to continue daily life and IVF as though nothing was happening.<\/p>\n

For me, that meant teaching my political participation course at Auburn University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teaching politics when it gets personal<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ll never forget walking into class on Monday, Feb. 19, and telling the students about the court\u2019s ruling and how it \u2013 maybe? \u2013 was going to jeopardize Gabby\u2019s and my IVF process.<\/p>\n

Before starting IVF, Gabby and I had gone through three miscarriages together.<\/p>\n

IVF doesn\u2019t always work. Approximately 55% of IVF patients<\/a> under the age of 35 \u2013 Gabby is 26 \u2013 have a successful pregnancy after one egg retrieval. We couldn\u2019t imagine the pain of telling friends and family that our attempt at having a child had once again failed. So we had agreed we were going to tell as few people as possible about starting IVF.<\/p>\n

Yet, here I was now, telling my entire class what we were going through and how the Alabama Supreme Court ruling could affect us.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t alone in sharing our story. The night before my Monday morning class, Gabby published an opinion column<\/a> on our local news site about the ruling and our resulting fears and anxieties, which really resonated with people.<\/p>\n

\"Clear<\/a>
Cryopreservation gives prospective parents more time to pursue pregnancy.<\/span>
\nTed Horowitz Photography\/The Image Bank via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was, that day and throughout the next few weeks, fixated on the conceptual gulf between the court\u2019s ruling and public opinion. I wondered aloud, \u201cWho\u2019s against IVF? Surely, only 5% to 10% of the public agrees with this ruling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actual numbers aren\u2019t far off my in-class guess. Only 8% of Americans<\/a> say that IVF is immoral or should be illegal. But the story is more nuanced than that. Approximately 31% of Americans and 49% of Republicans<\/a> support \u201cconsidering frozen embryos as people and holding those who destroy them legally responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an attempt to tie our personal political experience into the class topic, I remarked that this court decision was a surefire way to get people involved in politics. I had no clue at the time how prophetic my comment would be.<\/p>\n

Fleeing to Texas for reproductive rights?<\/h2>\n

On Wednesday, Feb. 21, the University of Alabama Birmingham\u2019s fertility clinic<\/a> paused IVF treatments. That wasn\u2019t our clinic, but the move sent us into a total panic. Our clinic\u2019s closure seemed inevitable \u2013 and within 24 hours it had paused IVF treatments as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t know what we were going to do, but we knew we were likely leaving the state to continue IVF. I needed to tell my department chair what was going on.<\/p>\n

I was walking out of my department chair\u2019s office when my phone rang. Gabby told me, \u201cWe got in, we\u2019re going to Temple.\u201d I ran back into my department chair\u2019s office, told her we were going to Temple, Texas, and then rushed home.<\/p>\n

A reporter from CNN<\/a> beat me there. It was one of several<\/a> interviews<\/a> with major<\/a> media<\/a> outlets<\/a> Gabby did in the wake of her opinion column. After the interview, we threw clothes in a suitcase, dropped our dogs off at the vet and drove to the Atlanta airport. We flew to Texas that night.<\/p>\n