WASHINGTON — Two Republican U.S. senators have teamed up to try to prevent states from banning in vitro fertilization, months after the Alabama state Supreme Court upended access to the procedure by ruling fertilized embryos were children under state law.
Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama and Ted Cruz of Texas introduced a three-page bill on Monday that would cut off a state’s Medicaid funding if that state were to bar in vitro fertilization.
“As a mom, I know firsthand that there is no greater blessing than our children, and IVF helps families across our nation experience the joyous miracle of life, grow, and thrive,” Britt wrote in a statement. “This commonsense piece of legislation affirms both life and liberty — family and freedom, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact it into law.”
Cruz wrote that “IVF has given miraculous hope to millions of Americans, and it has given families across the country the gift of children.”
The bill comes months after the Alabama state Supreme Court ruled that fertilized embryos that were frozen or hadn’t been implanted constituted children under an 1872 law.
State lawmakers approved and Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation afterward to provide civil and criminal protections to the state’s IVF clinics so that they might resume their work. Questions, however, remain and at least one of the state’s IVF clinics has closed.