IVF, “snowflake babies,” and Christofascism

Let’s talk a little about the recently-noticed hatred of in vitro fertilisation coming from Trump’s MAGA base, because while it’s being treated as new, it’s not actually new. It’s only recently risen back up to visibility – ahead, even, of their hatred of contraception – thanks to Trump’s success in overturning Roe v. Wade using his Republican-packed Supreme Court.

I’ve seen a lot of people publicly wonder why the Christofash are so against IVF, given that their whole procedure is about “more babies,” and they say they actually want “more [white] babies.” I’ve also seen people suggest that it’s solely about controlling women, and, well, of course that’s kind of true, because so very very much of what they do is about control over women.

But while there is some “separating procreation and sex is bad” thought out there – particularly amongst far-right Catholics – it’s actually far more consistent than that. At least, in its origins and early discussion.

It is, in fact, the direct result of them finding out more about IVF. They found out that multiple eggs are fertilised at once, with the most apparently healthy being implanted, and the others kept frozen. They then asked themselves a couple of… I hate to say it, but reasonable questions:

If every fertilised egg is a person, why doesn’t that apply in cases of destroyed fertilised eggs left over from IVF treatments? Why aren’t we condemning the destruction of human life that happens as part of IVF?

If you hold their professed beliefs – and some of them actually do – then the answer is obvious. They naturally then came to that obvious conclusion, one that’s entirely reasonable for those who have decided against all reason that a fertilised egg is in fact an actual whole person. They decided that yes, this is the same thing, it is a person, and no, IVF should not be allowed in its current form because yes, it is murder.

All of this is, again, nonsense. But it’s a rare bit of consistent nonsense from them, and you can see how it follows from a certain point of view.

And as they came to this conclusion – some decades ago now – they knew it would be impossible in the near term to even approach it, politically. Certainly not with Roe v. Wade the law of the land, which even to those with a focused interest in IVF was a far, far bigger issue to tackle.

Besides, the people involved in this – the Beverly LaHaye crowd were involved, but not just them – actually did empathise with people trying to have children. The goal, that was fine; the method, however, was not.

So they started a campaign to try to “save” what they started calling “snowflake babies.” It was a campaign, a recruitment effort to find volunteers who would have these leftover zygotes implanted, and then carry them to term as their own. Married heterosexual women only need apply, of course – their secondary worries about IVF included thoughts that it would somehow let THE HOMOSEXUALS have children, and they were, naturally, stridently opposed.

But honestly? If someone wants to get pregnant with a leftover IVF-fertilised egg, great! Go for it. I hate the whole “married heterosexual cisgendered women only” part of course, but the rest? It’s fine! Knock yourselves out.

At the time, it almost sounded like them trying to take positive action themselves for once, rather than just driving hate against others. I even allocated a little bit of hope that maybe it marked the beginning of a healthier trend.

Alas, it did not. But at that time, it couldn’t be ruled out.

Regardless, none of this ever went away. Bush II threw them a token amount of money in his first term to promote the idea, there are some small organisations still promoting “embryo adoption,” and the term “snowflake babies” still shows up once in a while.

Really, though, they see it as a stopgap, or even harm reduction. At its core, their fight is still to define every fertilised egg as a full human being with not just full rights, but more rights than anyone carrying it.

So those aren’t backup or redundant fertilised eggs, those are “snowflake babies,” and therefore cleaning the dish containing them is murder – no matter how many actual, real new parents and actual, real new children IVF procedures help create.

Accordingly, IVF must go, for the heartache of would-be parents pales to nothing next to the God-given inalienable rights of…

…a single frozen cell in a dish, which matters ever so impossibly more than any real child ever could matter to any of them.

Now you know how they got here, and you know that this isn’t a fad, and that it will not be something they easily give up. And since this whole line of thought is absolute batshittery to anyone not buried deep in the inner nooks and crannies of their bizarre cult, hopefully you have a better idea how to use this particular bullshit against them.

Good luck out there, and good hunting.

75 days remain.

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i would not buy ecovax devices

Hm, ecovax feels no need to patch this bluetooth exploit that lets you p0wn their robot vacuums and lawnmowers and do things like turn on their built-in cameras and microphones, and have them connect to random servers directly themselves.

It’s on the basis that since it’s bluetooth, you need to be in the area of the device, but, uh, that’s also true for hax0ring your local wifi? So I don’t see how that’s actually better.

Anyway – neat! Maybe don’t buy their stuff.

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