In the wake of the divisive Alabama Supreme Court ruling that grants personhood to embryos, a video of the future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett refusing to answer whether her legal position was to “criminalize IVF” during her 2020 confirmation hearing is re-circulating on social media.
As seen below, Barrett told U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) that she wouldn’t be able to answer “in the abstract.” Blumenthal reacted by saying, “thousands maybe millions of women, potential parents, would be horrified to think that IVF treatment could be made criminal.”
Barrett publicly supported an organization that called for the criminalization of IVF, and I distinctly recall conservative law professors screaming at me for pointing this out in 2020—because it was true, and they didn’t want people to know it. https://t.co/3pqofUEEhU https://t.co/4irIsJYnTQ
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 23, 2024
Journalist Mark Joseph Stern, Senior Editor at Slate, is reminding Americans that “Barrett publicly supported an organization that called for the criminalization of IVF,” saying, “I distinctly recall conservative law professors screaming at me for pointing this out in 2020—because it was true, and they didn’t want people to know it.” Yet Barrett’s position did receive coverage.
Stern provides a link to the 2020 Guardian article Revealed: Amy Coney Barrett supported group that said life begins at fertilization.
The article reported that Barrett, while a law professor at Notre Dame, signed a full-page newspaper ad in 2006 sponsored by St. Joseph County Right to Life which was published in the South Bend Tribune. It stated: “We, the following citizens of Michiana, oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death. Please continue to pray to end abortion.”
The executive director of the organization, Jackie Applebaum told The Guardian: “We would be supportive of criminalizing the discarding of frozen embryos or selective reduction through the IVF process.”