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John Oliver has weighed in on the debate over the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that frozen embryos are people.
The "Last Week Tonight" host said the decision was "wrong for a whole bunch of reasons. Mainly, if you freeze an embryo it's fine. If you freeze a person, you have some explaining to do."
The February 16 ruling jeopardized the future of in-vitro fertilization in Alabama. It's not an outright ban, but it could make it harder to conduct IVF.
At least three fertility clinics have paused IVF treatment due to fears of legal repercussions, BBC News reported.
And the Medical Association of the State of Alabama said the ruling may increase the cost of IVF by making clinics liable in wrongful death lawsuits.
About 2% of babies born in the US a year are conceived through assisted reproductive technology, of which the main type is IVF.
"IVF cycles take weeks of careful monitoring and expensive treatments. You can't just hit pause and wait out a court case," Oliver said on Sunday.
Donald Trump called on Alabama lawmakers to preserve access to the treatment, in a Friday post on Truth Social: "We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!"
Oliver also criticized politicians like Trump for "desperately trying to distance themselves from extreme policies that they have enabled."
"You can say we just want more kids but you're making life incredibly hard for people, including those who desperately want them," he said.
"Burning books and ending IVF are the natural endpoints of the extreme policies they've held hands with."
