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There was immediate backlash when Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled in February that embryos created through in vitro fertilization qualified as children under the state’s wrongful death law. But it was a backlash as much from the right as from the left: The state’s overwhelmingly Republican government took just weeks to pass a law to shield fertility clinics from liability when embryos are damaged or destroyed.
It seemed the fight over I.V.F., as a cultural question, was over before it began. In May, 82 percent of Americans polled by Gallup said they believed I.V.F. is morally acceptable. In response to public pressure, Donald Trump recently promised to defend I.V.F. with federal protections and even a theoretical mandate that health insurance pay for it.
This wasn’t inevitable. A generation ago, bioethicists fought over whether assisted reproductive technology would be normalized or made taboo. Now there’s strong public consensus that it should be not only tolerated but also celebrated.
But this may be a lull. With major technological advances in childbearing on the horizon, what was once hypothetical is becoming plausible, setting the...