Dingus of the week: "Pro-IVF" Republicans
Dingus of the week: "Pro-IVF" Republicans
Plus, dingus madness and NYT BESTSELLERS LIST!!
This week, my book made the New York Times bestsellers list! Thank you so much. We made that happen. This community did it. We are the equivalent of the Trump organization buying a bunch of copies of Donald Jr.’s book to make it a bestseller. Except it’s all of you and none of us tried to overthrow democracy or did some financial crimes. (Good lord, I hope you didn’t. But if you did, you can probably afford to buy more copies of the book.)
What happens when you write a bestseller is that Mr. New York Times shows up at your front door and gives you a top hat and a monocle and ushers you into a secret club where you can hang out with Malcolm Gladwell.
Actually, what happens is your editor calls you while you are picking your kids up from school. The connection on the phone is kind of bad but you hear that you made it! And everyone yells. Later, your son will try to get out of practicing piano because it’s been a big day for him. And at some point your 12 year old daughter will hug you and say, “A New York Times bestseller and you still can’t remember to shower.” And there are still the dishes and the dog poop. It’s great and overwhelming, but my brain is melting out of my ears, and like my son, I have had a big day. So I outsourced the weekly dingus to everyone’s favorite Midwestern comedian, Taylor Kay Phillips. Taylor has pinch-hit in the past and continues hitting home runs off the heads of dingii.
If you are new here, the weekly dingus is the newsletter where we make fun of someone or something in the news. Then, we share some good things and a drink or two. The spirit of the dingus is best summed up by the words of the late columnist Molly Ivins, “So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it.”
Without further ado, here is the brilliant Taylor...
I present to you, esteemed Men Yell at Me readers, our Dingus of the Week: Scrambling ‘pro-IVF’ Republicans who didn’t see the Alabama Supreme Court ruling coming.
A quick recap: About two weeks ago, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally considered children. Which would make me say “Oh, boy,” if I weren’t worried the court would make this sentence a child, too, and arrest me for deleting it.
“I was just killing my darlings,” I would say.
“If women can’t handle the responsibility, they should keep their laptops shut,” they would reply.
I don’t mean to be flippant. This is obviously a travesty. But it’s one that many abortion advocates have been sounding alarms about for a long time. And quite frankly, it’s one that anyone who spends more than two seconds pondering the assertion that “life begins at conception” should have seen coming a red-state mile away.
The most immediate impact has been on folks seeking and performing IVF. Since, in most cases, more embryos are gathered than are used in the actual process, many end up in storage or, in the case of a successful pregnancy, safely disposed of. Many IVF providers in the state have paused procedures while their legal teams suss out whether or not this ruling puts them at risk for criminal charges in the course of adhering to these standard protocols.
And hey, guess what? Looks like taking away the option to have biological children is as politically unpopular as making it mandatory.
You know when you don’t want to do something super politically unpopular? Nine months before an election.
Taylor, did you say nine months?
Sure did.
That is the traditional length of a pregnancy. Aren’t you going to make some joke about how Republicans should be forced to carry this decision to term?
Great joke idea, italic spirit, but I feel like that one’s been done!
That’s fair. Your commitment to originality is refreshing.
Thank you.
Turns out, Republicans have their tubes tied in some political knots right now trying to figure out how to square their obsession with people having babies at all costs with a scientific process that actually puts children in the lives of willing parents.
The idea that embryos are children is fundamentally at odds with the idea that IVF should be legal and accessible. It literally always has been! Since the first moment of the idea’s … conception.
Booo.
Shut up, italic spirit.
This is not a twist. It is not surprise poison fruit at the bottom of a yogurt cup.
These people walked into the grocery store, demanded that the store carry only “poison fruit on the bottom” yogurt, lobbied and canvassed for politicians who believed that the grocery store should only carry “poison fruit on the bottom” yogurt, and celebrated victory with huge “poison should be at the bottom of all yogurt” signs.
“I would just never eat yogurt if I didn’t want the poison in it,” these imaginary metaphor advocates would say.
“But only poison fruit yogurt everywhere is going to affect people’s ability to make yogurt chicken and this Earl Grey yogurt cake1,” anyone who understands the full scope of yogurt’s use would respond.
“No it won’t,” say the poison yogurt people.
But it does. It absolutely totally does.
You can’t say “I believe every yogurt should be ‘poison fruit at the bottom’ yogurt and people should also be able to eat mango lassi that’s not poisoned.” You just can’t.
But ooh baby (jail for me!), the Republicans are trying.
Nikki Haley somehow believes embryos are children but disagrees with the Alabama Supreme Court ruling.
She thinks:
Embryos are babies.
The court needs to go back and look at the law.
I’m sorry, woman running walking through peanut butter for the highest office in the land, are you telling me there’s a way to rewrite a law in Alabama that will acknowledge the existence of babies but allow for their “disposal” under certain circumstances? Forgive my youthful parlance, but that is straight delulu.
Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, said he was okay with IVF but had not looked over the Alabama ruling and “wouldn’t even want to try to pretend to understand what the issue is there.”
Wouldn’t want to try to pretend to understand. Jeez Louise. I guarantee you, this man does not know how to make a bowl of Lucky Charms because “it doesn’t taste as good” when his wife/daughter/assistant doesn’t make it.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas — a state with some of the most devastatingly strict abortion laws — is claiming that all of this is “a relatively new issue.”
In a real Lucille Bluth move, he also admitted to not knowing the specifics of IVF, particularly how many embryos were frozen at a time, saying:
“I have no idea mathematically — the number of frozen embryos, is it one, 10, 100, 1,000? Things like that matter.”
Someone put this man in charge of Sally Ride’s space tampons, STAT.
But Abbott also offered, possibly, the most encapsulating and damning response to all this when he said to Dana Bash:
“I’m not sure everybody has really thought about what all the potential problems are, and, as a result, no one really knows what the potential answers are.”
Everybody hasn’t, that’s true. But a whole lot of people, literally so many people, actually have thought a lot about this. And good news, Greggy, they are the same ones who know what the potential answers are. But they’re not the answers you’re going to like vis-á-vis female autonomy, clusters of cells, sex for fun, optional pregnancy, etc.
This is exactly what was going to happen.
It is the logical extension of an idea that the Republican party has made a central tenet of its anti-abortion platform: Life begins at conception.
Seems like, no matter how good it feels, and no matter how much pressure you’re under from your friends or the extreme wing of your voter base, even if they say they love you, you shouldn’t turn grand, sweeping unscientific statements into law unless you’re ready to deal with the consequences.
—
And now for something good:
Olivia Rodrigo is raising money for abortion access funds on her tour! Regular readers will know that I (Lyz) am on the board of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund and the need here in the state is critical. Right now we are doing our Fund-a-thon, where all donations will be matched by the National Network of Abortion Funds. So, be like Olivia Rodrigo and donate today.
Caitlin Clark breaking records and registering for the WNBA draft!
Minnesota has its first women’s sports bar! Minneapolis, we should go there after the event on March 20!
E Jean Carroll is E Jean Carrolling hard. And we love to see it.
Also, Garrett Bucks’ book is coming out in March!
Announcing Dingus March Madness!
This year we are going to do a dingust bracket where we match up past dinguses and find the dingus to rule them all. Friend of the newsletter Beau Anderson put together a seeding bracket where you can vote for the dingii that you want to see in a dingus-on-dingus matchup. Unlike in political elections, you can vote multiple times. So vote early and often!
What I am drinking:
On Wednesday, after I got the news about having a bestseller, I forced my kids to go to my favorite restaurant, Cobble Hill. And I celebrated with a glass of a lovely red wine that had really strong cherry undertones, in a deep, dark, earthy way. And the staff was so lovely and brought us nonalcoholic wine to toast with.
I got the kids home and to bed. And poured myself a glass of bourbon from Freeland Spirits. I was given the bottle from the owner and it’s so lovely and a women-run business. Then, I sat on my couch in the dark with the dogs at my feet and toasted to the house I made and the life I’ve built.
Seriously, do yourself a favor and make this.
 | A guest post by
|
It's been a bit surreal feeling going through my first IVF cycle simultaneous to the Alabama ruling which determined that embryos are "extrauterine children". IVF has been consuming 95% of my thoughts lately. It is so strange to turn on NPR while cooking dinner and hear the world talking about IVF.
As a public health practitioner who has spent many years working in the sexual and reproductive health space, I long ago developed a wariness about engaging with those who spout anti-choice rhetoric. It often seems quite clear that the anti-choice movement and politicians care little about health or wellbeing, and care quite a lot about exerting control over people's bodies as a means to enacting white supremacy, patriarchy, and religious fundamentalism.
My husband and I are pursuing IVF so that we can screen embryos for a genetic variant associated with severe morbidity and possible neonatal death. As a part of this journey into parenthood, we are operating under the assumption that we will indeed come to a point where we opt to destroy certain embryos, so that they do not turn into babies at risk of death.
As a person of reproductive potential, I am always sensitive to legislative activity which endangers one's right to bodily autonomy and self-determination. In this particular moment, I feel compelled to share my story.
It is never, never about the right to life. It is always, always about control and subjugation.
The anti-abortion groups have definitely thought about all of this, whether or not the politicians they elect have done the same, and these groups don't care what anyone else thinks because they believe they answer to a 'higher power'. Throughout the entirety of this crisis Republicans have demonstrated zero ability to resist these groups, so that shows us exactly what will happen if they win this election.
It's important to note that people making use of IVF have to be relatively wealthy. Whereas people who need abortion care tend to skew poorer, for lots of reasons. If this development is getting more news coverage or backlash, that's a big part of the reason why.