CPAC celebrates the Alabama IVF ruling – while Trump and Republicans distance themselves

On Friday evening, during the Reagan Dinner, Bishop Joseph Strickland, the former bishop of Tyler, Texas addressed the topic Republican elected officials have hoped to avoid: the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos could be considered children under state law, saying that conservatives needed to guide Republicans politicians to support the “sanctity of life.”

“This decision by Alabama’s court was correct according to our Catholic faith,” he said addressing the conservative faithful and donors after an auction that included selling off portaits of Donald Trump and Jesus Christ and before a speech by failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Bishop Strickland, whom Pope Francis relieved last year from his position, called upon conservative activists to push Republican elected officials to stand steadfast behind the Alabama court ruling.

“We must help them understand the intricacies of what science has done, in playing God and having children, embryos, embryonic children frozen and too easily disposed,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Alabama Supreme Court made the decision as part of a wrongful death lawsuit that three couples brought after they had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a clinic.

But at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Maryland just outside of Washington, some conservatives praised the ruling, while Republican candidates for Senate and even Donald Trump have sought to create distance between themselves and the decision in Alabama.

Fr Joseph Pierce, a priest at St John Vianney Church in Frederick, Maryland, agreed with Bishop Strickland.

“I'd say it's one of those steps for life in the right direction,” he told The Independent on Friday