On Sunday afternoon, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.) an in vitro fertilization bill with two aims: First, it would prohibit any state that receives Medicaid funding from prohibiting IVF, and second, it would “protect life.
” But when the bill’s text was revealed the next morning, nothing about it was pro-life. In their Wall Street Journal , the senators conclude: “This is an opportunity to unite on a shared bipartisan commitment to life.” Cruz and Britt are wrong.
IVF, as practiced in the U.S., is not committed to protecting life.
In the U.S., IVF regularly involves selective abortion, a procedure which, in other instances, Cruz and Britt have opposed.
When whether an “IVF embryo is considered life at conception” by a Bloomberg reporter during an interview on the bill, Cruz sidestepped the question, deflecting that the issue of abortion belongs with the states. Cruz has previously , “No right is more precious and fundamental than the right to life, and any just society should protect that right at every stage, from conception to natural death.” Britt also to a pro-life stance when she said, “As a Christian, conservative wife and mother of two precious children, I am proud to be 100 percent pro-life.
Both my faith and the science tell me that life begins at conception, and I’ll fight tirelessly to protect life in the Senate.” But apparently, the right to IVF would appear to be more “precious and fundamental than the right to life.” .