Free Republic

There is no way of saying that Tuesday’s special election in Alabama was in any way a positive for Republicans. Democrat Marilyn Lands defeated Republican nominee Madison, Alabama, city councilman Teddy Powell by a 62%-38% blowout margin, an unexpected outcome in a seat only recently considered competitive. For the first time since 2002, Democrats gained a seat on Republicans in the Alabama Legislature, where Republicans currently have a supermajority in both chambers. What happened? On Wednesday, national media are heralding the outcome and tying it to Alabama’s strict abortion ban passed by the legislature in 2019 and a recent Alabama...

Well aware of how difficult conception or carrying a baby to term can be, some couples who hope to exercise a bit of control over an unpredictable experience are opting to do in vitro fertilization first.. ... In the United States, more than 2 percent of all infants born are conceived using assisted reproductive technology, of which I.V.F. is the most common. At least 12 million babies have been born globally using I.V.F. since 1978... ... At age 35, there is a 15 percent chance of conceiving naturally per month... At 40, that drops to 5 percent. ... I.V.F., however,...

Oh boy! Meet Elvis, 10 weeks, and his 11-day old brother Ezra, who have made British history along with their mums Emily Patrick and Kerry Osborn. The babies, pictured here for the first time, were born to the lesbian couple via IVF. Elvis was created from Kerry's egg which was fertilised and implanted in Emily so she could be his birth mother. Ezra, meanwhile, was created from Emily's egg and implanted in Kerry so she could carry and deliver him. It's the first time the procedure, known as simultaneous reciprocal IVF, has been attempted in the UK - and it...

Some commentators object to the way in which fertility clinics make pornography available to men as an aid to masturbation when those men produce sperm for evaluation, storage or IVF. These objections typically rely on claims that pornography is generally harmful to women, unnecessary and dissociates sexual acts from conception. In light of these objections, certain commentators want fertility clinics to divest themselves of pornography… …Both the porn industry and sperm retrieval are predicated on metaphorical surrogacy. In both cases, a substitute takes the place of a human body and thereby severs the ancient link between orgasm in intercourse and...

The Alabama Supreme Court decision is one of the morally clearest rulings of the decade. As it rightly asserts, unborn children are “children” and deserve appropriate legal and ethical protections. Unfortunately, many Christians—including those who consider themselves “pro-life”—are lacking in similar moral clarity. …In December 2020, a patient at an Alabama hospital wandered into the fertility clinic through an unsecured doorway. The patient then entered the cryogenic nursery and removed several embryos. As the court notes, “The subzero temperatures at which the embryos had been stored freeze-burned the patient’s hand, causing the patient to drop the embryos on the floor,...

Former President Donald Trump said he supports in vitro fertilization treatment after Alabama’s highest court ordered hospitals to stop offering the procedure. Trump took to Truth Social Friday to call on the state’s lawmakers to preserve access to IVF days after The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law.“Like the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans, including the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and Pro-Life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby,” Trump railed online. “Today, I am calling on the Alabama Legislature...

Donald Trump denounced the Alabama Supreme Court for making it “harder” for American families to have children. The former president took to Truth Social to voice his opposition to the recent ruling that frozen embryos should be considered “children.” He called on Alabama’s state legislature to “find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama.” He wrote: Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families. We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder! That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments...

The media freakout over the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos are people continued on Thursday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, where the MSNBC eponymous host welcomed OBGYN Jennifer Lincoln to label the state “dangerous” and claim Evangelicals are trying to kick women out of the workplace. Mitchell led Lincoln with two reasons why a woman may seek IVF treatment. The first had to do with the ramifications of certain life choices, “a lot of women are staying in the workplace longer and not having children, delaying marriage until their late 30s or 40s. For them, this can be very, very important,...

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the GOP’s official body tasked with aiding Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, is urging them to “clearly and concisely” reject restrictions on in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Alabama Supreme Court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos qualify as children and are therefore protected by state law. “The text of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified,” argued Justice Jay Mitchell in the majority opinion. “It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our...

The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatment in the state.

A first-time mom who carried twin babies to term before being forced to give them up has settled with the fertility clinic which 'unimaginably' implanted her with embryos from two other women. The Korean-American woman from New York City only discovered the appalling mix-up in the delivery room when the twin girls she had been told to expect turned out to be two Caucasian boys. She and her husband, named in court papers as AP and YZ, had struggled for years to conceive before spending $100,000 at the Cha Fertility Clinic in Southern California. But just six weeks after becoming...

Growing up, I couldn’t understand why I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. There it was in black and white on my birth certificate, yet it didn’t make any sense. My parents had never lived in Kentucky, we weren’t American and had no family connections to the place whatsoever. When I asked my mother, she told me she chose Kentucky because it was where her favourite film, Gone With The Wind, was set (it wasn’t) and she always wanted her child to be born in such a romantic location. It’s also why she called me Olivia after one of the film’s...

A London-based ‘sperm donor‘ who has fathered at least 180 children through both “artificial insemination” and “natural insemination” is complaining that his serial sperm ‘donations’ have made it difficult to have a relationship. The man, who calls himself “Joe Donor,” says he is the “angel of the north” because he’s fathered nearly 200 children with women who don’t know his real name or identity. He ‘donates’ to the women in multiple ways; in addition to mailing sperm to women for artificial insemination, he also engages in “natural intercourse,” meaning he has sex with the women, and “partial intercourse,” meaning sex...

Last week, we reported that a homosexual YouTuber who once bragged about having a grotesque sexual encounter with his cat, and who also has made excuses for pedophilia, along with his homosexual partner, had purchased two boys through surrogacy. The new surrogacy trend in the United States is gaining steam and is quickly becoming a new battlefront for decent, sane people to stand up and oppose. As I wrote previously, the practice of surrogacy (womb rental) and IVF, especially within the context of homosexual relationships, not only distorts the Biblical design of family but also involves deeply troubling ethical concerns....

A lesbian couple seeking to become parents have spoken out about the cost involved with IVF, saying that they have spent over $30,000 since 2020 trying to get pregnant. In an interview with Australia’s 9Honey, Steph and Kayla said in 2020, just one year after they began dating, they knew they wanted to start a family. “We looked into it pretty quickly after getting together, because Kayla didn’t want to be 30 and still trying for a child,” Steph said. Among both gay and straight couples, IVF has become incredibly popular in Australia; according to 9Honey, one in every 18...

If I believe life begins at conception, and I do, there are 9 lives sitting on ice in a freezer that bear my DNA. When I began the process of IVF, I was desperate to become a mother. Infertility is not part of God’s design, but so it has become part of the fabric of human existence since the Fall. I’d been a vocal, pro-life advocate since elementary school, but IVF felt like the opposite of abortion. It was life creation, not destruction. And yet, now we know that more than a million tiny, conceived lives exist in medical freezers...

Same-sex couples have to pay thousands of pounds before they can access IVF fertility treatment through the NHS in contrast to the process for heterosexual couples which has been labelled as a “Gay Tax”, according to a report. As reported by the BBC, NHS England funds IVF for heterosexual couples who have been trying to conceive, unsuccessfully, for at least two years whilst other details such as age and weight status. However, campaigners are aggrieved that same-sex couples face a different process in that they need to prove their infertility before the NHS will commit to IVF but as part...

Women desperate to have children are being lured into unprotected sex as part of a growing industry of black-market sperm donation. The rise in same-sex couples and aging mothers has caused the price of a round of IVF to rocket to up to $30,000 in recent decades, leaving many unable to afford to go the official route. An increasing number of would-be parents are turning to a Facebook group where men offer to donate their sperm for little or no charge - but these often come with demands. Many only agree to 'natural insemination' - sex - or 'partial insemination',...

YouTubers Shane Dawson and Ryland Adams have announced that a woman they hired to be a surrogate is now pregnant with twins. There is concern over the well-being of the children due to Dawson’s past inappropriate behavior regarding children. In a video announcement, Dawson and Adams traveled to Seattle, Washington, to attend the six-week ultrasound the surrogate was undergoing, which was delayed a week so that the men could be present, according to People. In the newly released video which was filmed back in May, Adams states, “We’re pregnant, b***!” “Whatever God wants for us is what it’s gonna be,”...

Related video above: Calls to Massachusetts fertility clinics after Roe v. Wade ruling All Sharon McRae and her husband wanted were to be parents, but it took terminating embryos to get there, she said. The Columbia, Maryland, couple were thrilled when she quickly became pregnant, but about nine and a half weeks in, she miscarried. It was devastating, but the doctor said it happens. They tried again. She would have three more consecutive miscarriages, which required a procedure called dilation and curettage, often called a D&C, to remove the tissue, before fertility specialists found the right combination of treatments for...