ICYMI: FACT SHEET: Murray and Duckworth Outline How Republican Attacks on IVF are Serious, Real, and on the Rise Across America
Senator Murray: “This Republican bill is a PR tool, plain and simple. It’s just another way for Republicans to pretend they are not extremists they keep proving they are… I’d like to ask my colleagues who are offering this enormously inadequate bill… Do you oppose ‘fetal personhood’ which, by its very nature, will throw IVF access into chaos? Please, go on the record with a clear, simple ‘yes’ here. Because until you do—all your claims of supporting IVF will fall obviously short, just like this bill does.”
**VIDEO of Murray’s floor speech HERE***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), objected on the Senate floor to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Katie Britt’s (R-AL) attempt to pass through unanimous consent a Republican bill that would “require, as a condition of receiving federal Medicaid funding, that states not prohibit in vitro fertilization (IVF) services.” Senator Murray outlined how this woefully inadequate legislation explicitly allows states to restrict IVF by enacting burdensome and unnecessary requirements that could create the kind of legal uncertainty and risk we saw in Alabama that forced clinics to close their doors. Murray also pointed out how the bill defines IVF in an intentionally incomplete way to sidestep the matter of what happens to frozen embryos and appease Republicans’ extreme anti-abortion allies who vehemently oppose IVF. Senator Murray made clear that Republicans cannot have it both ways, claiming to support IVF while at the same time supporting fetal personhood—an extremist ideology that says an embryo should have the exact same rights as a living, breathing human being and is fundamentally incompatible with IVF.
“I am not going to mince words here: It’s ridiculous to claim this bill protects IVF when it does nothing of the sort,” Senator Murray said on the Senate floor. “In fact, it explicitly allows states to restrict IVF in all sorts of ways—it’s literally in the bill text! Remember, it didn’t take state lawmakers in Alabama passing a ban on IVF for clinics in the state to suspend services!
Murray continued, “even though it is an inherent part of the IVF process that families will make more embryos than they need, this bill does nothing—not a single thing—to ensure families who use IVF can have their clinics dispose of unused embryos without facing legal threats for a standard medical procedure. Instead, this bill completely ignores the matter of what happens to frozen embryos, in order to appease Republicans’ extreme anti-abortion allies. This was intentional—and it leaves the door open to a lot of chaos.”
“So, this Republican bill is a PR tool, plain and simple. It’s just another way for Republicans to pretend they are not the extremists that they keep proving they are. Meanwhile there are bills some Republicans are pushing for, right now, that would enshrine as a matter of law that life begins at conception and that discarding unused embryos is essentially murder. Senator Cruz himself supported a personhood amendment to the U.S. constitution,” Murray said. “The stone cold reality is that you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood.”
ICYMI, here’s what Barbara Collura, President and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association said about the Republican IVF Bill: “The bill allows for states to push for regulations that could severely reduce the standard of care for IVF treatment, such as restrictions on how many embryos are created and what individuals can do with these embryos — decisions that should only be made between patients and their doctors, based on science and clinical guidelines. The solution is federal legislation that enshrines access to IVF for all.”
Senator Murray leads the Right to IVF Act with Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), which would establish a nationwide right to IVF and other assisted reproductive technology, expand insurance coverage of IVF services to lower the cost of IVF treatment for families, and expand access to IVF and other fertility services for our nation’s veterans and servicemembers.
This morning, Senators Murray and Duckworth released a new FACT SHEET on how Republican attacks on IVF are serious, real, and on the rise across America. The fact sheet explains how fetal personhood is a full-frontal attack on reproductive freedom and could put an end to IVF care and other assisted reproductive technology, and outlines personhood measures and other proposal state would negatively impact access to IVF that Republicans are actively pushing in state legislatures and at the federal level. Also today, Murray spoke at a press conference about the upcoming Senate vote on the Right to IVF Act alongside Senators Duckworth and Booker and IVF patients and providers from Alabama and across the country.
IVF is overwhelmingly popular with Americans—recent polling found that 85 percent of Americans support increasing access to fertility-related procedures and services. A survey from Pew Research Center in September found that 42 percent of adults say they have used fertility treatments or personally know someone who had—up from 33 percent five years ago.
Senator Murray’s full floor speech, as delivered, is below:
“In fact, it explicitly allows states to restrict IVF in all sorts of ways—it’s literally in the bill text!
“Remember, it did not take state lawmakers in Alabama passing a ban on IVF for clinics in the state to suspend services!
“Under this bill, there are a million ways Republican-led states could enact burdensome and unnecessary requirements, and create the kind of legal uncertainty and risk that would force clinics to once again close their doors.
“Also, even though it is an inherent part of the IVF process that families will make more embryos than they need, this bill does absolutely nothing—not a single thing—to ensure families who use IVF can have their clinics dispose of unused embryos without facing legal threats for a standard medical procedure.
“Instead, this bill—completely ignores the matter of what happens to frozen embryos, in order to appease Republicans’ extreme anti-abortion allies.
“This was intentional—and it leaves the door open to a lot of chaos.
“So, this Republican bill is a PR tool, plain and simple. It’s just another way for Republicans to pretend they are not the extremists that they keep proving they are.
“Meanwhile there are bills some Republicans are pushing for, right now, that would enshrine as a matter of law that life begins at conception and that discarding unused embryos is essentially murder.
“Senator Cruz himself supported a personhood amendment to the U.S. constitution!
“No way around that—the junior Senator from Texas wanted to change the United States Constitution to give embryos the same rights as living, breathing human beings.
“Look, the stone cold reality is that you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood.
“So I’d like to ask my colleagues who are offering this enormously inadequate bill, and I hope they do answer directly: do you support letting parents have clinics dispose unused embryos, which is a typical part of the IVF process? Or you oppose fetal personhood which, by its very nature, will throw IVF access into chaos?
“Because until they clearly answer that question—and it’s a couple simple ones—all the claims of supporting IVF will fall obviously short, just like this bill does.
“That’s why I object.”
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