Inside the Struggle to Protect and Defend IVF

Of course, Luna is also vocal about the need to separate IVF from the broader conversation swirling around abortion post-Roe. “I think probably in the House, there’re a lot of people on both sides that support it, but on the Republican side, people have been more quiet about it because of the fact that the national discussion has kind of been so all over the place. And so we wanted to make sure that the legislation that we put our name on allows for individuals that are actually medically impacted by this condition that they can have access to these tools.”

Indeed, many Republican lawmakers have argued for years that life begins at conception, the same argument the Alabama Supreme Court used to uphold its decision. Further confusing the Republican messaging around IVF, West Virginia Republican Alex Mooney introduced the Life at Conception Act in January 2023, which defines human being to include “all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” Unlike a similar bill introduced in the Senate by Rand Paul, the legislation does not include exceptions for IVF and yet still maintains the support of the majority of the House Republican caucus. Aside from Luna’s bill, the only other Republican-led effort in the House to protect IVF is a nonbinding resolution introduced by Nancy Mace that falls short of doing anything concrete to protect such treatments. (Representative Marc Molinaro joined Democratic efforts to protect IVF as the first Republican to sign on to the Access to Family Building Act.)

After Luna introduced her legislation, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was quick to condemn the Florida representative’s bill as not going far enough. “Anna Paulina Luna’s bill is yet another meaningless and desperate Republican tactic to save face on IVF. This bill would fail to protect IVF from far-right attacks in Alabama and across the country,” spokesperson Lauryn Fanguen said in a statement to VF. “If Luna truly cared about protecting access to IVF, she wouldn’t have taken herself off of the House bill that would actually protect IVF nationwide.”

There is also some debate regarding where IVF fits into the broader conversation among Democrats and the reproductive rights activist base. Hours before Biden declared he would “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land” during his State of the Union address, just short of one dozen abortion rights activists, advocates, and doctors gathered in the back room of Circa restaurant in Washington, DC’s Navy Yard neighborhood. As they picked at an assortment of plates from a prix fixe menu, the group—all invitees of Democratic members of Congress to the speech—shared their concerns and experiences navigating post-Roe America.

“It’s been very challenging…. Most of my colleagues have been muzzled in their ability to speak out, and I’m fortunate that I have an independent practice. I am pretty strong-willed, but it has been hard,” said Dr. Damla Karsan, who provided Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Texas woman with a nonviable and life-threatening pregnancy, with emergency abortion care. Reflecting on the threats she faced from as high up as the Lone Star State’s Attorney General Ken Paxton, Karsan added, “It just very clearly illustrates that the exceptions are no exception at all and that there’s a climate of intimidation.”

The winding conversation also exposed the growing fissures within the fight for reproductive rights as state legislatures across the country fill the legal void left by Dobbs and treatments such as IVF are caught in conservatives’ crosshairs. “If we think about these parts of medicine as separate or that IVF is different than maternity care, maternity care as different than abortion care, then it continues to fracture the work,” Dr. Jamila Perritt, an ob-gyn and the president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, said. “All of this is comprehensive reproductive health care. All of our patients everywhere deserve access to it. We will not allow you to fracture the system.”

Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, echoed the sentiment during the lunch. “One patient could have a miscarriage and then could seek IVF services and then could have an abortion—all the same person,” she said. “As soon as you can say life begins at conception, then abortion becomes a nonissue because ‘this is just murder’…. It’s really not ever been about abortion.” 

Of course, there are the political realities of the moment—of which Senator Duckworth and Representative Lee are acutely aware. Republicans currently control the House, and even despite a Democratic majority, the Senate has not passed legislation to protect access to abortion at the federal level. “Despite saying they support IVF, Republicans’ actions tell another story,” said Duckworth. “In Washington, Republicans—who shouted from the rooftops claiming to support IVF—blocked my legislation to protect access to IVF nationwide,” she added.

If Donald Trump is reelected in November, passage of protections could be all that much more difficult, despite his claim that he would “strongly support the availability of IVF.” After all, the ex-president installed three of the justices who overturned Roe and laid the groundwork for further restrictions on reproductive rights. Lee called on women across this country to stand up and “make sure that we are protecting our ability to make our own decisions, and that it goes along the continuum from abortion to IVF to any health care decision.” She said, “You’re seeing extreme pro-life bills and initiatives pop up all across the country…. I think the bottom line is that all of these efforts are anti-women and that I’m going to use whatever tool in my toolbox to make sure that I continue to fight, to make sure that women have the ability to make these tough, personal, complicated decisions.”

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