- Republicans are rallying around IVF access after a controversial Alabama Supreme Court ruling.
- The ruling deemed frozen embryos were people, which experts say threatens IVF procedures.
- The issue has been further fueled by a House bill to recognize human life at fertilization.
Republicans showing up on X en masse to rally around access to in-vitro fertilization are having their support for previous bills and political stances thrown back at them by peeved constituents online.
IVF is a medical procedure in use since the late ’70s that helps patients to conceive by retrieving a patient’s eggs from their ovaries and fertilizing them in a lab.
This procedure is now under threat both in Alabama and nationwide.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled on February 16 that frozen embryos — necessary for some IVF patients who want to delay their pregnancy by freezing their sometimes already fertilized eggs — are considered people under the law. It can result in fertilizing and freezing multiple embryos to be implanted.
Clinics are already suspending IVF care as a result.
Several party members immediately began distancing themselves from the Alabama ruling and voicing support for IVF treatments. Some even pointed out that they’ve used these treatments themselves.
GOP Rep. Michelle Steel of California, an anti-abortion advocate, said she did not support federal restrictions on IVF.
“IVF allowed me, as it has so many others, to start my family,” Steel wrote on Thursday on X.
However, users pointed out that Steel is a co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act.
Introduced in January, the House bill, co-sponsored by 125 House Republicans, would nationally recognize a “human being” to exist at fertilization — a similar position to the Alabama ruling. Previous versions of this bill have failed to move forward for a vote.
There’s no exception for IVF in this House bill. Similarly named acts previously introduced in the Senate have included this carveout.
Spokespersons for Steel did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
Rep. Ashley Hinson, another co-sponsor of the House bill, was also criticized.
A spokesperson for Hinson redirected BI to her post.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, who said on X that she would “stop any and all efforts to ban IVF,” was hit with a community note pointing out that she co-sponsored a previous version of the Life at Conception Act.
Mace also did not respond to a request for comment but previously told Axios that her office is “drafting a resolution” to express support for IVF.
“We should do everything we can to protect IVF for women everywhere,” Mace told the publication.
Mike Rogers, a GOP Senate candidate in Michigan and former House representative, posted that he opposes “any and all efforts to restrict access to IVF.”
Democratic candidate Elissa Slotkin, who is running against Rogers for Senate, pointed out that Rogers has co-sponsored four bills with similar language to the House bill while in Congress.
“You don’t get to run away from your own record because you’re just now understanding the consequences,” Slotkin wrote.
A spokesperson for Rogers pointed back to his X post in a phone call with BI but did not answer follow-up questions about whether the Senate candidate would support efforts to protect IVF should he be elected.
Former President Donald Trump recently voiced support for IVF following the Alabama decision and called on the state to continue supporting IVF treatments. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, however, declined to tell ABC News whether he would support any national law maintaining the right to access IVF treatments.
President Joe Biden’s campaign and Vice President Kamala Harris have also lobbed criticism regarding the Alabama Supreme Court decision, specifically calling out Trump.
“No matter what Donald Trump says about IVF today, don’t get distracted from the facts,” Harris wrote on X. “What’s happening in Alabama is a direct result of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.”
“Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t care about families, as evidenced by his destructive policies the past four years,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Business Insider in response to the Biden campaign statement. “The Biden campaign is shitting their pants because they know this election will be a referendum on all the misery and destruction Biden has brought to every single American.”
Reproductive rights organizations who previously spoke to Business Insider warned that Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, would open up the floodgates to restrictions on other aspects of reproduction like birth control and IVF. Trump’s three conservative justices appointed to the court — Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch — paved the way for Roe to fall.
