Ruling makes clear the need to protect IVF
When the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, they did much more than send the matter back to individual states. They created a web of national confusion and inconsistency, most recently manifest in the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling Feb. 20 that frozen human embryos are children.
In response to this decision, about half of Alabama’s medical providers, fearing civil and potential criminal liability, paused in vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatments.
The Alabama Legislature scrambled to clean up the legal mess, moving quickly to pass bills that provide legal immunity “for death or damage” to an embryo related to IVF services.
Across the nation, Republicans in leadership positions issued statements that sought to balance their opposition to abortion with their support for IVF. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, for example, reiterated how Texas has banned nearly all abortions. He then quoted former President Donald Trump’s Feb. 23 post on Truth Social, which supported IVF and called for it to be available in every state.
“We want to make it easier for people to be able to have babies, not … make it harder,” Abbott told CNN on Feb. 25.
Or in Trump’s own words: “Like the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans, including the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and Pro-life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF.”
This is pretty rich hypocrisy considering Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices, who then overturned Roe, opening the door to the Alabama decision.
The hypocrisy of these talking points underscores the importance of federal protections to ensure IVF is available in every state, just as the Alabama Supreme Court’s extreme decision reflects the reality there are no such assurances in a post-roe America.
Despite their statements of support for IVF, federal Republican lawmakers balked at the chance to ensure IVF is available in every state and safeguarded against the extreme politics evinced in the Alabama decision. It’s not what you say, but what you do.
Last Wednesday, U.S. Senate Republicans
blocked a bill authored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-ill., who sought passage by unanimous consent to enshrine federal protections for IVF.
And many of the House Republicans who say they support IVF have co-sponsored HR 431, the Life at Conception Act, which protects life “at conception” and makes no exception for vitro fertilization and the question of disposing of embryos.
They are hypocrites.
Before the Alabama decision, the system was working. IVF has been growing families since 1978 when, in the United Kingdom, the world’s first baby conceived through IVF was born. British scientist Robert Edwards received the 2010 Nobel Prize for the development of IVF therapy.
For more than 40 years, politicians and courts have managed to steer clear of destroying the opportunity for women struggling with infertility to become pregnant. About 42% of adults, an increase of 33% in the past five years, have used fertility treatments, which can cost $15,000 to $20,000 for each cycle, or they personally know someone who has, according to a September Pew Research Center report.
One of those women is Amanda Zurawski of Austin who is suing Texas over its abortion ban. She received an emergency abortion only after she went into septic shock.
She told NBC News she decided to freeze her embryos and use a surrogate to start a family, but after the Alabama decision, she moved her embryos out of Texas, fearing the state might mimic the Alabama court’s decision.
IVF and other reproductive medical procedures, including abortion, are decisions that women should have the right to make with their doctors. Republican lawmakers should put their rhetoric into action and support Duckworth’s legislation to guarantee access to IVF in every state.
Republican lawmakers say they support the procedure — prove it