The GOP's IVF Lie

Republicans' new bill is all smoke and mirrors

It looks like Sen. Katie Britt is doing damage control. Just a few weeks after introducing legislation that would establish a government-run website that would collect data on pregnant women, Britt is pushing new legislation she claims will “protect” IVF. Co-sponsored with Sen. Ted Cruz, Britt says the IVF Protection Act “affirms both life and liberty.”

“As a mom, I know firsthand that there is no greater blessing than our children, and IVF helps families across our nation experience the joyous miracle of life, grow, and thrive,” Britt said in a statement.

We all know what this is about. Ever since the massive national backlash to Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children,” Republicans have been desperate to convince voters that they’re not interested in targeting IVF.

But here’s the thing: the “IVF Protection Act” doesn’t actually protect IVF. In fact, it allows states to restrict the practice!

Let’s take a closer look at the language of the legislation. The bill defines IVF as “the practice whereby eggs are collected from ovaries and manually fertilized by sperm, for later placement inside of a uterus.” This limited definition is deliberate: No one is objecting to the process of retrieving eggs and fertilizing them, the issue is what happens to frozen embryos.

Those undergoing IVF often create multiple embryos to give them the greatest chance at conceiving. Many of those embryos will later be discarded, either because they’re unusable or because a patient had a successful implantation with another embryo.

Discarding embryos is a normal part of the fertility treatment process—but the anti-abortion movement opposes it. That’s why the bill doesn’t mention it. What the legislation does include, however, is language that protects states’ ability to restrict what happens to frozen embryos:

“Nothing in the IVF Protection Act shall be construed to impede States from implementing health and safety standards regarding the practice of in vitro fertilization.”

What does “health and safety standards” mean? Onerous restrictions on the IVF process that make it difficult, if not impossible, for fertility doctors to operate. (Similar to anti-abortion TRAP laws, Republicans will say these regulations are in women’s best interest.)

Anti-abortion lobbyists want states to impose limits on how many embryos can be created, for example, and dictate how those embryos can be used. And just a few months ago, the anti-choice Charlotte Lozier Institute submitted a public comment to the CDC advising them to report and regulate the embryos used in fertility treatments:

“Embryonic nascent human beings of blastula age (3-5 days post-fertilization) are living human beings, who merit the same respect and care as human beings at later ages of their development and lives.”

If you’re a regular reader, you know that reporting mechanisms are a central part of anti-abortion strategy right now. They want every abortion reported, every so-called abortion complication submitted to the state, and now, every embryo accounted for.

All of which is to say: Britt and Cruz’s legislation is a great big nothingburger. The legislation’s only purpose is to serve as a PR tool for Republicans, who desperately need Americans to believe that they’re not the misogynist extremists that their policies, beliefs and actions make them out to be. President of Reproductive Freedom for All Mini Timmaraju calls it “a blatant and hypocritical attempt for two staunchly anti-abortion Republicans to try to save face with voters.” And that’s exactly right.

Worst of all, while Republicans are pretending to offer protections for IVF, they’re gaslighting Americans about the real threat they pose to fertility treatments. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Sens. Britt and Cruz argue that the outrage over the Alabama Supreme Court decision was “inflamed by partisan commentary,” insisting that the true danger to families seeking IVF are “misconceptions and fear-mongering.”

They need voters to think that the Alabama ruling—dangerous in all sorts of ways—is just a run-of-the-mill decision that would have had no impact on IVF if not for those pesky activists. That’s because they don’t want Americans to realize that the issue at the heart of that ruling, fetal personhood, is one we’re going to see a lot more of—and one that will change not just women’s healthcare, but our legal personhood.

If Republicans were genuinely interested in protecting fertility treatments, they would have signed on to the numerous Democratic bills designed to actually safeguard IVF—like the Access to Family Building Act from Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

The truth is that the GOP is scared. They’re afraid of how angry voters are over abortion bans and terrified that their extremism will finally do them in. Republican lawmakers will do anything to prevent that from happening, including lying to voters about one of the most personal decisions families make—when and how to have children.

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