How Do Americans Feel About In-Vitro Fertilization?
Early human embryos, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and assisted reproductive technology (ART) with ZEISS Axio Observer and PlasDIC contrasting method. (Photo courtesy ZEISS Microscopy)
(ANALYSIS) Whenever I teach a course in public policy, I make sure to emphasize the point that a change in the law can have a lot of downstream effects. Some of those can be predicted, while others cannot.
Take the issue of abortion, for instance. For decades, under the framework of Roe v. Wade, states were prohibited from outlawing abortion during the first trimester. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe with the Dobbs decision, most Americans could have easily predicted what would happen in the immediate aftermath — several states would outlaw abortion at a much earlier stage of pregnancy. This prediction came true, with the Guttmacher Institute writing that 24 states have effectively banned abortion or planned to do so within six months of the Dobbs ruling being handed down.
However, in just the last few weeks, there has been another implication of Dobbs that I don’t think the average American would have seen coming. In 2020, a couple sued a hospital in Alabama that had removed their frozen embryos from cold storage and dropped them on the floor. The couple argued that this amounted to the wrongful death of a minor child. On Feb. 20, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed, writing that those embryos constituted persons who were entitled to the same rights as any other child.
Now, hospitals in Alabama are reeling. Several clinics have thousands of frozen embryos in their facility and are not exactly sure how they should proceed. Many hospitals in the state have suspended the in-vitro fertilization process fearing legal consequences. However, the state's attorney general has stated that he has no intention of prosecuting families or providers who engage in IVF.
The decision by the Alabama Supreme Court has been roundly criticized by even conservative politicians. This list includes the governor of Alabama, the U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump. It seems that this is a bridge too far for some politicians who applauded the Dobbs decision.
But what does the average American think about the issue of in-vitro fertilization? Fortunately, I found relevant questions in the Association of Religion Data Archives when searching through its data.
And I managed to find a survey called the Religious Understanding of Science, which was fielded in December of 2013 and January of 2014. I know that the data is a decade old, but I can’t imagine views of IVF have changed radically over the last 10 years.
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Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on X at @ryanburge.