As hospitals across Alabama pause IVF treatments, Nikki Haley is suddenly trying to claim she never said what she said.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is frantically trying to quell the controversy over comments she made about IVF after an Alabama court’s recent ruling that frozen embryos are children.
“We don’t want fertility treatment to shut down, we don’t want them to stop doing IVF treatment, we don’t want them to stop doing artificial insemination,” Haley said on CNN on Thursday. “But I think this needs to be decided by the people in every state. Don’t take away the rights of these physicians and these parents to have these conversations.”
It was Haley’s second such attempt to explain away her controversial stance on the issue. On Wednesday evening, Haley blurted out a much more gibberish response.
“Well first off all, this is, again, I didn’t say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling. The question that I was asked is ‘do I believe an embryo is a baby?’” Haley said on CNN Wednesday evening. “I do think that if you look in the definition, an embryo is considered an unborn baby. And so yes, I believe, from my stance, that that is.”
But calling an embryo—the stage before the microscopic cellular mass is labeled a fetus—an unborn baby is not exactly correct.
Wait, I don’t want to confuse what the ruling actually means. Embryos are fertilized, so an egg going without fertilization and being passed through menstruation doesn’t meet that definition. If it is fertilized and is still passed through menstruation (as what, a good quarter of pregnancies do?) then sure.
I’ll be there first to point out hypocrisy and the authoritarian big government this would require to prove (and likely would affect minorities disproportionately), but I don’t think it helps to distort what this law means. It very well could be a slippery slope towards it, and yes is still enormously stupid, but it doesn’t meet the threshold of what you’re arguing. Unless I’ve misunderstood the wording of the law?
Right, give them time to add another ruling that does mean that.
If you read the rest of my comment I said as much.
Fair enough.