CNN Anchors Share Their Personal Experiences With IVF Following Alabama Ruling: ‘An Embryo Is Hope’

A report on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) stance on Alabama’s IVF decision and what to do with “a hundred, a thousand” extra frozen embryos in his state turned personal for CNN anchors Dana Bash and Kasie Hunt on Monday.

Live on the set of her new show, CNN This Morning With Kasie Hunt, the two discussed their personal experiences with the very “complicated” issue of IVF.

HUNT: I don’t think I’ve ever said this in public, but I had a personal experience with IVF. I have frozen embryos. And when he starts to talk about numbers — “Oh it matters if there are thousands” — for every family, for every mother and father for whom, that they’re in that situation, the ones that they have — and, sure, we know better than anyone that a frozen embryo’s not a baby but also it represents — there’s real grief when you lose them. What do you think elected leaders need to do in terms of how they talk about this issue in that human way that you say?

BASH: First of all, yes, it’s amazing that you talk about it because a lot of people, I also —

HUNT: I hadn’t been willing to until now.

BASH: I also went through IVF. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones after years that actually had an extra embryo. And I do think about, well, what if I did? I mean, I had one that survived, and that’s my son. And what if I didn’t? And it is really, really hard, and it’s complicated. You know, I was reading…this essay in The Washington Post, but the way that [author Monica Hess] framed it, is that an embryo is hope.

HUNT: Yes.

BASH: An embryo is hope of a child, and it is not an actual child yet. And I think that that was really smart, particularly for parents, never mind for policy and politics, but just for parents, the way that they look at it. But the one thing that Abbott said, Kasie, was that we haven’t really thought about it, it’s new. Obviously IVF is not new, it’s been around for decades and decades and decades. Like almost half a century. What is new, is that it wasn’t an issue before Roe was overturned.

HUNT: Right.

BASH: And it wasn’t something that they could think about, or they had to think about before Roe was overturned. And I’ve seen some people say, “Well, you know, Roe and IVF, they’re not related.” They absolutely are related for this issue because Alabama wouldn’t have been able to do what they did, I don’t believe, without it going to the Supreme Court, without Roe being overturned.

Watch the clip above via CNN.