A large majority of House Republicans released a budget proposal on Wednesday endorsing legislation that would threaten to make in vitro fertilization illegal nationwide. The move is a stunning turnabout after most of the party spent weeks voicing support for IVF following a controversial Alabama Supreme Court ruling that led providers in the state to halt the procedure.
The Republican Study Committee, an influential group that comprises nearly 80% of House Republicans, released its budget for fiscal year 2025, and it backed the Life at Conception Act. The legislation would grant full legal rights to embryos from “the moment of fertilization,” the same logic employed by the Alabama justices who effectively outlawed IVF in the state. The Senate version of the bill had a carve-out to protect IVF, but the House version did not — meaning access to IVF would be vulnerable to restrictions if it were enacted.
Many of the 120 House Republicans who are listed as co-sponsors of the Life at Conception Act have been reticent to discuss their thoughts on IVF since the Alabama ruling and the national outrage that followed. The National Republican Senatorial Committee urged members last month to “clearly state [their] support for IVF” and “publicly oppose any efforts to restrict access,” and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said the same in her response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
But for conservative politicians, and particularly evangelicals, IVF is still a controversial procedure.
Also on Thursday, four members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), sent a letter opposing a new Biden administration policy that will expand IVF access for unmarried veterans and veterans in same-sex marriages.
“A surplus of embryos will be created which are likely to result in abandoned, or cruelly discarded human life,” the letter reads.
These surprising attacks on IVF run counter to some other House Republican efforts. This week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he supports access to IVF, but that he does not believe Congress “needs to play a role” in protecting it.
And last week, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced the first Republican-sponsored House bill to protect in vitro fertilization since the Alabama ruling. Luna is a member of the Republican Study Committee.
The Right to Try IVF Act, which she introduced last week as HR 7669, would cut off federal funding to any states that “prohibit a licensed physician from performing [IVF] for an individual experiencing medical hardship in conceiving a child.” (The full text of the bill is below.)
If a state were to ban IVF treatments, the Right to Try IVF Act would make the state ineligible for funds that come from the State Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant program. The program, also known as Title V, is one of the largest federal grant programs that states can apply to for funding for health service needs for parents, infants and children. In fiscal 2022, the program sent over $2.6 billion to states across the country.
Currently, Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.) is the only co-sponsor of Luna’s bill.
It’s not clear whether the bill would protect access for people in Alabama, where three of the largest fertility clinics paused IVF care immediately after the state’s Supreme Court ruling. What happened in Alabama was not an outright ban on IVF created by lawmakers, but a product of Alabama Supreme Court justices using fetal “personhood” ideology to interpret state law. That wouldn’t appear to meet Luna’s criteria for withholding federal funding, which applies only if states explicitly prohibit physicians from performing IVF.
If the language of her bill did apply in places like Alabama, however, state lawmakers might be powerless to stop the loss of federal block grant money, because the ruling against IVF was an action taken by an independent state court, not the direct result of a state law.
Luna’s spokesperson declined to comment after her team shared the bill text with HuffPost.
A similar bipartisan bill has already been working its way through the House. Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) introduced the Access to Family Building Act earlier this year alongside Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). The legislation would create a statutory right to IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies for patients and providers, guaranteeing that clinics could operate without reprisal from their home state. Introduced over a month before the Alabama ruling, the bill now has 149 co-sponsors, including two Republicans from New York.
Luna’s bill “in no way creates a right for a person who wants or needs in vitro,” Wild told HuffPost. “All it does is create penalties on states that are going to outlaw [IVF]. So there’s a huge difference there.”
Luna was a co-sponsor on Wild’s bill for a short period of time, but withdrew her support after the Alabama decision late last month.
Wild said she and her team have received nothing but positive feedback on her bill. She believes Luna’s bill is another example of Republicans “running for cover” in an attempt to satisfy constituents upset about the Alabama Supreme Court decision.
The Alabama ruling centered on a 2020 lawsuit in which three couples sued an Alabama fertility clinic and hospital for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos, using a legal framework for bringing civil charges when a child dies. The couples’ frozen embryos were reportedly destroyed by a patient who wandered into the cryogenic storage area where the embryos are kept, and dropped them on the floor.
The judicial decision equated destroyed frozen embryos with children who’d died wrongfully — inherently putting fertility providers at legal risk, because discarding embryos is a common part of the IVF process.
Since the ruling, Republicans have floundered to find the right messaging on IVF. Many, including presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, have said they support protections for IVF, but their words often haven’t aligned with their actions.
“So-called moderate House Republicans are hellbent on banning abortion nationwide. No matter how they try to talk around it, their actions speak louder than words,” Viet Shelton, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told HuffPost on Thursday. “Their latest far-right manifesto that rips away at women’s reproductive freedom is just further proof.”
Earlier this month, several House Republicans introduced two symbolic measures to express support for IVF protections, but neither has any legislative power to protect the procedure. Despite Republicans’ claims of supporting IVF access, they twice blocked Democrats’ attempt to pass legislation to safeguard fertility treatments on the federal level.
“I think [Republicans] recognize that, politically, IVF is a very popular issue. It creates families. It solves a huge problem for couples who are infertile,” Wild said. “It is one of those things that people can’t believe that this right would be taken away from them.”
“Here we’ve got this amazing medical science that has almost been perfected,” she said. “And we’re going to tell families that they can’t use it.”
