Washington Democratic US Senator. Patty Murray speaks during a press conference on in vitro fertilization outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Also pictured are supporters of Senate Democrats’ IVF access bill, as well as Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – Republican Senator from Alabama. Katie Britt‘s efforts to pass legislation that would prevent Medicaid funding from going to states that ban in vitro fertilization were unsuccessful Wednesday when Democrats blocked the bill.
Britt, who introduced the legislation earlier this year with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said during a brief debate that the bill would address concerns about couples losing access to IVF, although Democrats said the measure would not actually offered protection.
The debate took place shortly after the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant religious organization in the United States and one with significant influence in conservative politics, voted to condemn IVF.
It also came one day before the entire U.S. Senate was set to vote on a Democratic bill that would provide nationwide protection for IVF. That measure also lacks the bipartisan support needed to advance to final passage.
“For the millions of Americans who deal with infertility every year, IVF offers the hope of a path to parenthood,” Britt said in the audience. “We all have loved ones – whether family members or friends – who have become parents or grandparents through IVF.”
Britt said ensuring access to IVF is “fundamentally pro-family” and that the legislation should provide couples “the assurance and peace of mind that IVF will remain legal and available in every single state.”
Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington said the Britt-Cruz bill would still allow states to adopt “burdensome and unnecessary” regulations on IVF that could lead to the kind of “legal uncertainty and risk” that IVF clinics face in Alabama forced it to temporarily close earlier this year. year.
“Even though it is an inherent part of the IVF process that families will create more embryos than they need,” Murray said. “This bill does absolutely nothing – absolutely nothing – to ensure that families using IVF can have their clinics dispose of unused embryos without facing legal threats to a standard medical procedure.”
Murray said Republican senators completely ignored the issue of what happens to frozen embryos and used the bill as a “PR tool.”
“The stark reality is that you cannot protect IVF and defend the personhood of the fetus,” Murray said.
State access
The Britt-Cruz legislation would prevent a state from receiving Medicaid funding if it banned access to IVF, although the bill said nothing about states defining life as beginning at conception.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year that frozen embryos were children did not explicitly ban IVF, but all of the state’s clinics ceased operations until the Legislature provided civil and criminal protections.
Cruz tried to pass the bill through the unanimous consent process, in which any senator can request approval and any senator can stop the legislation from progressing. Murray blocked Cruz’s request.
Unanimous consent requests do not include a recorded vote.
The legislation had three additional co-sponsors: Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Roger Marshall of Kansas.
Democratic bill
The Senate will hold an early procedural vote Thursday on legislation from Democrats that would strengthen protections for IVF, although that bill is not expected to have the GOP support needed to move forward.
That bill is more detailed and broader than the Britt-Cruz bill, which has drawn criticism from Democrats as insufficient.
Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said during a press conference on Wednesday that access to IVF should not become a political issue and called on Republican senators to support the bill.
“We cannot make this look like a left-right issue. That is absolutely not the case,” Booker said. “This is an issue that is overwhelmingly supported in America by Republican families, Democratic families and independent families. And so trying to turn this into a typical political debate in Washington is just wrong.”
Booker said protecting access to IVF is instead “about protecting basic rights, expanding opportunity, taking care of our military families.”
Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, the bill’s lead sponsor and who has been open about using IVF to have her two daughters, poured cold water on working with Republicans on a bipartisan bill when asked about the possibility.
“Well, they’re welcome to join us and make it a bipartisan party. We have 47 co-sponsors so far and it is a very simple piece of legislation,” Duckworth said. ‘I don’t understand why they wouldn’t join it.
“In contrast, 90% of Republicans have not signed Senator Britt’s bill,” Duckworth added.
Southern Baptists Resolution
The Senate debate on in vitro fertilization comes the same week the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Indiana for its annual convention.
During that two-day meeting, more than 10,000 Baptists, called messengers, voted on the SBC’s official policies, including objecting to the way IVF is now practiced.
The SBC wrote in its resolution that IVF “is most often involved in the destruction of embryonic human life and increasingly engages in dehumanizing methods of determining fitness for life and genetic sorting based on notions of genetic fitness and parental preferences .”
The resolution on IVF “specified” that members of the SBC could “use only reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation,” as well as several other affirmations in the document.
The resolution was entitled: “On the ethical reality of reproductive technologies and the dignity of the human embryo.”
Kristen Ferguson, of 11th Street Baptist Church in Upland, California, who announced the resolution before the vote, opposed an amendment that would have made several changes to the text.
Ferguson said during a brief debate that the committee that wrote the resolutions for the SBC to vote on wanted to ensure IVF was addressed “with the utmost sensitivity.”
She added that members of the resolution committee “have not taken this topic lightly and we want to make sure we speak about it carefully.”
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