WASHINGTON — Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt’s efforts to pass legislation that would block Medicaid funds for states that ban in vitro fertilization failed Wednesday when Democrats blocked the bill’s further passage.
Britt, the introduced the legislation Former Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz said during a brief debate that the bill would address concerns that couples could lose access to IVF, but Democrats said the measure offers no real protections.
The debate took place shortly after the condemnation of IVF by the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant religious group in the United States with considerable influence on conservative politics.
What’s more, this happened one day before the full U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on a Democratic bill that would provide nationwide protections for IVF, a measure that also lacks the bipartisan support needed to pass.
“For the millions of Americans who face infertility each year, IVF offers hope of a path to parenthood,” Britt told the panel. “We all have loved ones – whether family members or friends – who have become parents or grandparents through IVF.”
Britt said that ensuring access to IVF is “fundamentally family-friendly” and that the legislation should give couples “certainty and peace of mind that IVF will remain legal and available in every single state.”
Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray said the Britt-Cruz bill would continue to allow states to enact “burdensome and unnecessary” IVF regulations that could lead to the kind of “legal uncertainty and risk” that forced IVF clinics in Alabama to temporarily close earlier this year.
“Although it is an inherent part of the IVF process that families produce more embryos than they need,” Murray said, “this bill does absolutely nothing – not one thing – to ensure that families using IVF can have their clinics dispose of unused embryos without facing legal threats for a standard medical procedure.”
Murray said Republican senators were completely ignoring the question of what happens to frozen embryos and were using the bill as a “PR tool.”
“The harsh reality is that you cannot protect IVF and at the same time defend the personhood of the fetus,” Murray said.
State access
The Britt Cruz legislation would prevent a state from receiving Medicaid funding if it prohibited access to IVF. However, the law does not address states where life begins at fertilization.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year that frozen embryos were children did not explicitly ban IVF, but all clinics in the state suspended operations until lawmakers Civil and criminal protection is provided.
Cruz wanted to pass the bill using the unanimous consent procedure, in which any senator can ask for consent and block the bill from passing. Murray blocked Cruz’s request.
In the case of motions for unanimous consent, no roll call vote shall be held.
The bill had three other co-signers – Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Roger Marshall of Kansas.
Democrats’ bill
The Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on a Democratic bill to strengthen protections for assisted reproduction as early as Thursday, but the bill is not expected to receive the Republican support needed to advance.
This bill is more detailed and comprehensive than the Britt Cruz bill, which was criticized by Democrats as inadequate.
New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker said during a press conference on Wednesday that access to IVF should not be made a political issue and urged Republican senators to support the bill.
“We can’t portray this as a left-right issue. It absolutely isn’t,” Booker said. “This is an issue that is overwhelmingly supported by Republican, Democratic and independent families in America. And so to turn this into some kind of typical Washington political debate is just wrong.”
Booker said ensuring access to IVF is more about “protecting fundamental rights, expanding opportunities and caring for our military families.”
Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, who is considered a key sponsor of the bill and has spoken openly about using artificial insemination to give birth to her two daughters, was frosty about the possibility of working with Republicans on a bipartisan bill when asked about the possibility during the press conference.
“They’re welcome to join our proposal and make it bipartisan. So far we have 47 co-signatories and it’s a very simple bill,” Duckworth said. “I see no reason why they shouldn’t join.”
“In contrast, 90% of Republicans did not sign Senator Britt’s bill,” Duckworth added.
Southern Baptist Resolution
The Senate debate on in vitro fertilization comes the same week that the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Indiana for its annual convention.
During this two-day gathering, more than 10,000 Baptist messengers voted on the SBC’s official policies, which included objections to the current practice of IVF.
The SBC wrote in its resolution that IVF “most often destroys human embryonic life and increasingly uses dehumanising methods for determining viability and genetic sorting based on ideas about genetic fitness and parental preferences.”
The resolution on IVF “resolved” that SBC members “should use only those reproductive technologies that are consistent with this affirmation and several other affirmations in the document.”
The resolution was entitled “On the ethical realities 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, spoke against an amendment that would have made several changes to the text.
Ferguson said during a brief debate that the committee that drafted the resolutions for the SBC vote wanted to ensure that the issue of IVF was handled “with the utmost sensitivity.”
She added that members of the Resolution Committee “do not take this issue lightly and we want to make sure we talk about it carefully.”
