'No one wanted to talk': Report finds GOP silent on massive new political headache

When the Alabama State Supreme Court last week declared frozen embryos to be children, it immediately jeopardized the use of the in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure in the state.

In fact, Alabama's largest hospital stopped IVF treatments just one day after the ruling for fear of being sued for disposing of unused frozen embryos.

And now Politico's Playbook reports that Republicans don't seem to have any strategy for this massively thorny issue heading into an election year.

"We reached out to the GOP’s congressional campaign committees yesterday to ask about the ruling and found that... no one wanted to talk about this, underscoring that Republicans are still struggling with this matter," the publication writes.

What's more, Politico writes that one of the few Republicans who would speak to Politico about the ruling came off as "a bit defensive" and immediately tried to turn the topic to undocumented immigrants.

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Stepping back to look at the broader context, the report notes that only a fringe minority of American evangelicals believe that IVF is murder, although that fringe is massively influential over Republican politics.

However, polling shows that this issue is toxic for Republicans, which is why former Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has emphasized to Republicans that they should say that they support legalized IVF to avoid further angering swing voters upset by the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Stan Barnes, a political consultant and former Republican state senator in Arizona, similarly argued to Politico that a potential ban on IVF could mean nothing good for Republicans in an election year.

“It certainly intersects badly with general election politics for Republicans,” he said. “When a state, any state, takes an aggressive action on this particular topic, people are once again made aware of it and many think: ‘Maybe I can’t support a Republican in the general election.’”