Nikki Haley Tries to Backpedal on Alabama Embryo Ruling Comment

After the Alabama Supreme Court made the controversial decision to rule that frozen embryos should be treated as children under state law, Haley expressed support for the ruling. In the days since, she has repeatedly attempted to walk that back — with limited success.

Seeing their point

“Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley said to NBC News after the controversial ruling was announced. “When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that.”

Severe ruling

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The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be protected under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. This effectively meant the Court was defining frozen embryos as children.

Dodgy language

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According to the Court’s concurring opinion, “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.… Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

Real consequences

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At least three IVF clinics in Alabama have already been forced to pause their operations due to this ruling.

Real sorrow

“We are saddened that this will impact our patients’ attempt to have a baby through IVF, but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments,” a spokesperson for the University of Alabama at Birmingham health care system explained.

On the warpath

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at an election campaign event in Orlando, Florida December 2, 2015. Photo Credit: Marty Jean-Louis — Image credit: headlinephotos via Depositphotos

“They came for abortion first. Now it’s [in vitro fertilization], and next it’ll be birth control,” Hillary Clinton warned after the ruling.

Poor attempt

Haley’s first attempt to explain her initial comments was a little confusing. “Well, first of 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. “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.”

Second try

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“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 in her second attempt the following day.

State decision

“I think this needs to be decided by the people in every state,” Haley qualified. “Don’t take away the rights of these physicians and these parents to have these conversations.”

Lack of rights

However, as Mother Jones explained, allowing state officials to make the decision has the effect of taking away the rights of physicians and parents to decide whether they want to pursue IVF.

Fight back

Mother Jones spoke to a woman who had used IVF to have her daughter. When asked how she would explain the situation to her daughter, the woman said, “I will tell her that it’s her body and her choice to do whatever she wants with that. But there are men in this world that want to take that away from her. She needs to stand up to them and let them know that it’s not their choice of what she does with her body and her embryos and her future babies.”

Extremism

On the day Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker released the Court’s ruling, an interview between him and Christian conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow’s podcast. Parker claimed that “God created government” and that Christians must work to take back control of government.