HBO
Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling last week that frozen embryos fertilized in test tubes legally qualify as living, breathing human beings sent Republicans scrambling to clarify their positions so as not to lose votes from women in the 2024 elections—and John Oliver wasn’t about to let them get away with it.
On Last Week Tonight, Oliver said equating in vitro fertilization (IVF) with actual people was “wrong for a bunch of reasons—mainly if you freeze an embryo, it’s fine. If you freeze a person you have some explaining to do.”
But the Alabama court ruling carries “massive implications” nationwide, as an estimated 2 percent of Americans are born through IVF. The ruling prompted many of that state’s fertility clinics to immediately stop treatments out of fear they could be sued for wrongful death for any unused, discarded or destroyed embryos. That, in turn, prevents countless couples from continuing their efforts to have kids. “IVF cycles take weeks of careful monitoring and expensive treatments. You can’t just hit pause and wait out a court case,” Oliver said.