Time now for a mid-week review of some major political developments so far this week with our friend Roland Martin, who's with the NPR states team senior editor, who you may have heard on the radio this morning if you listening to Morning Edition.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, Renee.

Thank you.

We'll talk about why you were on Morning Edition in just a moment, but some rather breaking news today.

Midday, we learned about us.

Senator Mitch McConnell says he will not run for Republican leader or he's not going to step down from the job as as a senator.

But come November, he's going to give that up.

Tell us about this.

Yeah, this is this is huge news.

McConnell is the longest leader in the Senate and this is going to end his tenure after, you know, after this coming election in November, after, you know, the presidential election.

He's said that he's going to continue in his seat through the end of his term, which goes until 2026.

You know, we'll see what what the world is like after this year's elections.

Whether he holds through on that promise.

Obviously, he gave a speech on the Senate floor today.

I thought it was it was a really interesting speech that talks a little bit about is where he's at in making this decision, but also where the party is at right now.

And the Republican Party's in this really interesting place going into this presidential election, especially when we're talking about national aid or U.S. aid to to foreign wars.

So, you know, and he was saying that he he's really of the mind that he's been pushing a lot for aid to Ukraine as it continues to defend itself against the invasion from Russia.

And he said that I believe more strongly than ever that America's global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill.

And this is a really different perspective than a lot of other publicans, especially in the Senate.

It's very divided right now.

And obviously on this particular issue, it's been hard to get that aid passed through Congress right now.

So a little bit of this is McConnell's age.

He's 82 years old.

Obviously, last summer he had the you know, he had a couple of episodes where he throws very publicly during press conferences.

But I think we can't you know, we got also got to talk about the politics of the moment.

Right.

One is on this foreign policy issue, but also with the former president Donald Trump being an apparent frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president this year as well.

And McConnell and Trump have not been very good colleagues over the last couple few years, especially in the January six insurrection, which McConnell accused Trump of, of having a role playing a role in encouraging people to storm the Capitol.

And and he's left in this awkward position on whether or not to provide an endorsement for, you know, Trump, who's apparently going to get the nomination.

So this might make that a little easier for him, actually.

And we'll see where McConnell lands on having to endorse the former president or not.

Yeah, it was interesting how he framed it as that one of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter.

And then he continued on in his floor speech to talk about just what you said.

So shifting now to one matter in Frankfurt that's getting some discussion, and that's a bill that was passed out of committee dealing with child support payments to pregnant women.

And this has some implications or some correlations perhaps to second some concerns about what's happening in Alabama when it comes to IVF.

Talk to us about this.

And this is what you talked about on Morning Edition.

Yeah, And it is this very complicated issue.

A lot of times it gets summarized as fetal personhood bills.

But this particular bill would provide make pregnant women eligible for child support when they are pregnant.

You know, from the point of conception on the thing is, is that some reproductive rights advocates have been worried that bestowing any sort of rights on a fetus or an embryo can lead to this process in which in which a fetus or an embryo is guaranteed certain rights and guaranteed certain personhood.

So that's where that's what leads us to that big splashy story that we all saw last week out of Alabama, where the Alabama Supreme Court blocked or ruled that frozen embryos that had accidentally been destroyed during the IVF process were actually subject to, you know, to criminal charges that that the people who had who had accidentally damaged those embryos were subject to criminal charges because that they were considered the same as children even outside of the womb.

So going back to the Kentucky, that that led to a lot of worries about IVF, whether or not, you know, fertility treatment for folks who are trying to try to have babies and going through IVF, whether that that would be illegal.

And in fact, a few hospitals in Alabama stopped providing that treatment.

Anyway, in Kentucky, lawmakers, the sponsor of that bill, Whitney Westerfield, attempted to make sure that this doesn't lead to that slippery slope of damage, either undermining people's ability to access IVF by saying that it would only you'd only be able to get child support retroactive.

So once the pregnancy is complete, you know, we'll see.

There have been similar measures like this proposed around the country.

Georgia actually has a similar law to this on the books already.

But a lot of legislatures that have been pushing these sort of fetal personhood measures are now being a little bit more hesitant, at least in this first weeks since that ruling, because it's really shock a lot of of how be legally it can lead to to undermining the in vitro fertilization process.

And today is the last day to file bills in the Senate.

So who's to say perhaps at the end of the day, when we look at what's been filed, that something may not resemble what has happened elsewhere, That's yet to be seen, I guess.

Well, thank you, Rosalind.

It's always good to see you.

Appreciate your time.

Thanks, Renee.