NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who is outspokenly anti-abortion, slammed Republicans who have rushed to embrace in vitro fertilization in the wake of a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that found frozen embryos are human beings.
Santorum, an ally of former President Donald Trump and a former presidential candidate himself, praised the Alabama ruling last week that clarified the destruction of embryos constitutes a crime under the state’s “wrongful death of a minor” law.
ALABAMA IVF CASE: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CONTROVERSIAL OPINION
“We play defense instead of going on offense and saying, ‘Well, shouldn’t we protect human life from being destroyed in a malicious way? Yeah, we should,’” Santorum said.
Santorum, who serves as a contributor on Newsmax, has long supported regulating in vitro clinics and said he was disappointed to see the coordinated Republican counteroffensive to Democratic claims that the party wants to limit access to the fertility method in recent days.
Trump and Republicans in key Senate races voiced support for the treatments Friday, distancing themselves from the ruling, which puts the overturning of Roe v. Wade, this time involving in vitro fertilization procedures, at the forefront of the 2024 election.
“I think it shows how uninformed and cowardly we are on these issues — and how we have been so traumatized as a movement by the Left’s brutal assault on all things sexual that any time something comes up, we retreat instead of reading the decisions, looking at the consequences, and actually making an intelligent response,” Santorum said in an interview with the Washington Examiner at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.
“But that’s not what we do,” Santorum added. “We run for the hills. It’s pathetic.”
Santorum emphasized that there should be a discussion among members of the party about the ethical and moral standards that should be associated with IVF procedures.
“The problem I have with Republicans is we get panicked,” Santorum said. “The Left goes crazy, says something that wasn’t in that decision, and then we start defending ourselves against things we’ve never said. No Republican has ever said there should be a law to ban IVF — if there was any Republican to say that, it would be me, and I’ve never said that at all.”
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The Alabama ruling already appears to have far-reaching implications on the treatment. The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system announced it was halting its IVF procedures immediately over fear of lawsuits and prosecution. It is the largest hospital in the state and the eighth-largest in the nation.
The wave of IVF support from Republicans came after the National Republican Senatorial Committee circulated a memo that urged candidates to support IVF and reject government restrictions, citing the procedure’s popularity.
