(The hill) – Republican Senators Ted Cruz (Texas) and Katie Britt (Ala.) announced Monday that they will introduce legislation to protect legal access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) nationwide, following a Supreme Court ruling by Alabama had decided that embryos resulting from the treatment were not children.
Cruz and Britt said they were introducing the bill to clear up the “confusion and misinformation” spread by the ruling, which has alarmed prospective parents who fear they could lose access to the process and the chance to have children.
“To address these concerns, we will introduce a bill on Monday to ensure IVF access is protected by law across the country. The legislation would require, as a condition of receiving state Medicaid funding, that states not ban IVF,” Cruz and Britt wrote in one Wall Street Journal editorial.
Cruz and Britt added that their goal is “to ensure that a family’s path to bringing a child into the world is not jeopardized by avoidable legal confusion.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed a state law in March that protects IVF patients and providers from liability for embryo loss. But Cruz and Britt say federal legislation would address the ongoing uncertainty.
“Our bill does not prevent states from setting health and safety standards for IVF, nor does it force individuals or organizations to offer IVF against their will or beliefs. “It simply ensures that access to IVF is fully protected by federal law, as no such federal law currently exists,” the senators wrote.
Cruz and Britt defended IVF treatments as “deeply pro-family,” pointing out that 2 percent of births in the United States result from the procedure.
Democrats, led by Senators Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Patty Murray (Wash.), have their own laws protecting access to IVF, but Republican Senator Cindy Hyde Smith (Miss.) has blocked attempts to get past it by unanimous consent in the Senate.
