Citing his "pro-family" beliefs, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has penned a bill that would federally protect the fertility treatment In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), just months after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling threatened the procedure.
Cruz, along with Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, introduced the IVF Protection Act earlier this week that would bar any state that bans the procedure from receiving Medicaid funding. In an interview with Bloomberg, Cruz described the bill as a “simple, straightforward federal bill” that he expects to gain bipartisan support and pass 100-0.
“Both Katie and I agree that IVF is incredibly pro-family. That we should be standing and helping parents that want to raise kids,” Cruz told Bloomberg. “[After the Alabama Supreme Court ruling] there was a lot of confusion, there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of misunderstanding and people did not want anything to threaten IVF. I agree with that.”
In February, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos created through the IVF process could be legally considered children under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. The ruling prompted clinics across the state to pause IVF treatments out of concern for liability, until a state law was passed in early March that protects patients and providers from civil or criminal prosecution in the event of a destroyed embryo.
"Obviously no state is going to forgo billions of dollars in Medicaid funding. Spending conditions are a common means of imposing a federal requirement and this follows that long pattern." — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz
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In response to the uncertainty following the Alabama case, Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois introduced the “Access to Family Building Act,” which outlined protections for IVF, but the bill was blocked by Republicans. Now with his own bill, Cruz said Duckworth’s legislation was “fundamentally different” from his own, and it sought to “backdoor in broader abortion legislation” as part of the “Democrats agenda.”
The Threat to IVF in Texas
Cruz declined to comment after the Observer asked whether there is a legitimate threat to IVF in Texas. But the question may have been answered during the Republican Party of Texas' (RPT) annual platform committee meeting, which kicked off this week in San Antonio. In the meeting, members of the Austin-based political action committee drafted a guide to the group's official platform that is used to lobby Texas Republicans. They spent part of an evening debating the language involving an IVF amendment titled "Preserving the dignity of human embryos."The amendment labels cryopreserved embryos as "Snowflake Babies" that should be preserved by the state until they are implanted "by either the couples who paid to create them or by couples who are willing to adopt and implant the embryos as their own children." The draft went on to say that the destruction of embryos, whether done knowingly or negligently, should be classified as homicide.
"I'm one of the strongest advocates here for abolishing abortion, and I can tell you this is an area I was very ignorant to. I think many of us don't really know what IVF is. It literally means to be born in a dish," one committee member who voted in favor of the amendment said during the meeting. "A secular world has created ways to make life in a Petri dish ... If anything we've been negligent in keeping an eye on this."The Republican Party of Texas plans to ban IVF in the state of Texas. #txlege pic.twitter.com/zYAuJbjZ8r
— Michelle (@LoneStarLeft) May 22, 2024
While some of the committee members said they wanted to see the contents of Cruz's bill before moving forward with the amendment, others said his bill was worrisome and believe the IVF protections betray party interests. The committee leader said he thinks the IVF discussion is a "future fight."
"This will piss off a lot of people and we are going to get horrible press for it," he said. "We should ask Texas to put the codification of life in the constitution."
The proposal narrowly failed 17-14. The RPT did approve the language "we support the adoption of human embryos and the banning of embryo trafficking."
How We Got Here
Some advocates for reproductive justice believe it is the stringent laws blocking abortion access in states like Texas and Alabama that have put IVF treatments at risk. U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who is challenging Cruz for his Senate seat in the November election, echoed that sentiment in a statement following the release of the IVF Protection Act.
“Let’s be clear, Ted Cruz’s long-standing support for an extreme ban on abortion which is now threatening IVF is why we are here,” said Allred. “Cruz brags about his long record of working to take away reproductive freedom, including supporting extreme personhood legislation and opposing exceptions for rape, incest and unviable pregnancies.”
In 2015, Cruz's Presidential campaign was endorsed by the Georgia Right to Life PAC after he voiced support for a personhood amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Such an amendment would recognize existence and guarantee a right to life from the "earliest biological beginning" of a human embryo. The "personhood" ideology has been criticized by abortion-rights advocates for threatening abortion access and blurring the line for fertility treatments like IVF.
“There’s a lot of hypocrisy there ... The same people who are having abortions may also need to utilize IVF.” — Maleeha Aziz, Texas Equal Access Fund deputy director
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Maleeha Aziz, deputy director of the abortion-rights advocacy group Texas Equal Access Fund, told the Observer that reproductive and family-planning healthcare “exists on a spectrum,” and the restrictions put on one end of the spectrum can negatively impact the other end. Aziz, who has had two abortions in the past and is currently undergoing IVF treatment, believes that a bill offering protections for the treatment is an attempt by Republicans to “manipulate the narrative" around reproductive healthcare.
“There’s a lot of hypocrisy there,” she says. “The same people who are having abortions may also need to utilize IVF.”
Aziz decided to pursue embryo banking and Preimplantation Genetic Testing through IVF after finding out that she has the BRCA mutation, making her susceptible to ovarian and breast cancers. Having watched the women of her family struggle with cancer diagnoses, she decided to preserve her embryos prior to undergoing surgeries that will mitigate her risk of cancer. When the Alabama Supreme Court ruling was released just months before she planned to begin IVF, she found herself “very scared” for herself, in addition to the women she advocates for.
“[Republicans are] trying to frame it as being so pro-life and caring so much but that’s really just not true,” Aziz said. “With the way that we have seen people being denied abortions in medical emergencies, and everything that has happened in the last couple of months on access, they are not really about reproductive justice at all.”
It is also not lost on her that IVF is a costly procedure that is rarely covered by medical insurances. Protecting IVF but not other, more affordable forms of reproductive healthcare continues “the usual” cycle of politicians protecting wealthier, white voters, she said. Aziz would like politicians concerned about access to IVF to “put their money where their mouths are” and regulate the prices of the procedure or mandate insurance coverage.
"Ted Cruz’s long-standing support for an extreme ban on abortion which is now threatening IVF is why we are here." — U.S. Rep. Colin Allred
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Other critics of Cruz's bill have argued that if the bill passes and a state moves forward with an IVF ban, the resulting loss of Medicaid funds could have a detrimental impact on the healthcare of residents within that state. In a statement shared with the Observer, Cruz called the worry a "ludicrous charge" meant to "fear monger."
