MSNBC: “125 of them are co-sponsors of legislation that would ban IVF and arguably many popular forms of contraception as well.”
Amidst mounting MAGA threats to in vitro fertilization, House Republicans continue to prove they’re unwilling to protect reproductive freedoms.
And their hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed. New reporting from NBC and MSNBC illustrates their ongoing efforts to cover up their deeply anti-choice agenda after backing legislation to ban IVF and abortion nationwide.
Rachel Maddow: “Do not bother paying attention to what they say, watch only what they do. They can say all they want about how much they want to protect fertility treatments and IVF. When they have a chance to ban it, their actions speak a lot louder than their words.”
ICYMI: The DCCC took aim at these Republicans for their “weak partisan stunt” which is “all talk, no action.” Read the memo HERE.
Earlier this year, Rep. Michelle Steel, a two-term Republican in a competitive district in Orange County, California, co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act with 124 other GOP backers, signaling solidarity with the party’s influential anti-abortion-rights base.
But last month, when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos created as part of in vitro fertilization are children, it sparked a political dilemma for Steel. IVF has broad support, and her critics were quick to note that the bill she backed could in effect nationalize the Alabama ruling and threaten IVF, a process in which unused embryos are often discarded. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, giving Congress the power to restrict reproductive rights.
But the Steel-backed Life at Conception Act says legal protections for human beings take effect at “the moment of fertilization.” She also hasn’t signed on to the Access to Family Building Act, which has only Democratic sponsors and would establish tangible legal protections for assisted reproductive technology like IVF.
Steel’s office didn’t respond to messages seeking comment on how she reconciles her pro-IVF stance with backing the Life at Conception Act.
Democrats say the swing-district Republicans will be enablers of a GOP agenda to bar abortion and IVF if they’re given power in the election.
“The Alabama Supreme Court did what a lot of Republican House members have wanted to do,” Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., who chairs Democrats’ campaign arm, said Monday on MSNBC. “They supported legislation called the Life at Conception Act, which is similar to what the Alabama court decided, and now all these Republicans are trying to come out saying they support IVF, but none of them are willing to support legislation to actually do that.”
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