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(LifeSiteNews) — In response to the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that brought IVF procedures to a halt throughout the state, Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth will ask her colleagues to bring to a vote legislation that she authored that would establish an alarming array of rights to artificial reproductive technologies beyond IVF treatments.
“The bill goes much further than protecting IVF,” The Washington Stand’s Sarah Holiday wrote. “It is being criticized for legalizing human cloning, gene-editing to produce ‘designer babies,’ the creation of animal-human hybrids (‘chimeras’), surrogacy, and the trafficking and destruction of human embryos. Many of these are prohibited in some state laws, but there is no federal ban and this bill would create a proactive right.”
Duckworth said in a press conference on Tuesday that the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision that “frozen embryos created through IVF should be considered children under state law” is a ruling “based on extreme ideology rather than on medical science.”
“The very people who claim to be defending family values are actively trying to enact policies that would prevent Americans from creating those families,” she asserted.
“They aren’t just going to stop in Alabama. Mark my words, if we don’t act now, it will only get worse,” she said.
Senate Democrats took advantage of the recent, surprising split among Republican leadership in reaction to the Alabama court ruling, zeroing in on the hypocrisy of those who identify as pro-life but who now support a procedure which involves abortion, treating unwanted embryos as nothing more than medical waste. Ninety-three percent of all embryos created through IVF are destroyed.
Former President Donald Trump roundly rejected the court’s finding, saying, “I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.”
He was joined by other self-identifying “MAGA” and “America First” who chose to distance themselves from the Alabama ruling.
“Donald Trump suddenly supports IVF after crowing and claiming and taking credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade. You can’t do both,” Duckworth said, according to a CBS report. “And so let’s find out tomorrow if any Republicans show up to block the unanimous consent.”
“It’s been incredible to watch Republicans now scramble over the weekend to suddenly support IVF, while many of these same Republicans are literally right now co-sponsors of legislation that would enshrine fetal personhood,” said Democrat U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington. “You cannot support IVF and support fetal personhood laws. They are fundamentally incompatible. You are not fooling anyone.”
Duckworth plans to bring her legislation, known as Senate Bill 3612, the Access to Family Building Act, to the Senate floor on Wednesday under “unanimous consent,” a procedure where if a single senator objects, the bill’s movement forward could be halted. However, if no senator objects, the bill would pass without a vote.
Duckworth and others hope that the moral quandary in which GOP leadership has placed itself will force her Republican colleagues to remain silent.
In addition to establishing a federal right to the entire array of artificial reproductive technologies (ART), the bill would allow the Department of Justice to pursue civil action against any state, government official, individual or any other entity that violates protections outlined in the bill.
“Far from showing compassion, S.3612 would codify a near-absolute right to create children in the lab, ignoring the rights of those children and the responsibilities of both parents and the baby-making industry,” Quena Gonzalez, the Family Research Council’s senior director of government affairs, explained to The Washington Stand. “It would prevent states from effectively regulating the industry, if doing so would add to the cost of IVF. And it would further separate parents from their filial duty to their unborn offspring.”
“The bill, by exempting itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), could be used by the IVF industry to force people and institutions — including religious organizations, small family businesses, and even pro-life organizations — to participate in providing, paying for, insuring, and underwriting artificial reproductive technology to which they object, either on religious or simply moral grounds,” Gonzalez warned.
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