State lawmakers hone in on IVF protections
Alabama supreme court's decision has become political football in antiabortion states
State legislators nationwide scrambled to introduce and pass protections for In Vitro Fertilization following the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision to grant personhood to embryos that hadn’t been planted.
In Mississippi, State Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson described IVF advocacy as “the greatest assault on the cause of life that we’ve seen in Mississippi in a long time.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he supports IVF but didn’t call for the legislature to protect it. Florida’s Democratic legislators have sought to pass a bill to protect IVF, and it’s also become a campaign issue.
Tennessee State Rep. Harold Love introduced a bill to protect IVF before the judgment, but it received renewed attention after.
“We were really pushed into a sense of urgency to make sure that we put something into law in Tennessee that clarified that this would not be the case,” Love said.
Many Republicans had said they supported IVF, so Love thought it could pass in committee. It ultimately didn’t. Republicans said the bill was unnecessary because protections existed and their supreme court hadn’t done anything like Alabama.
In 2022, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti issued an opinion that IVF treatments weren’t banned under the state’s abortion law. Love doesn’t think that suffices.
“The Attorney General is not going to be going to every consultation with every family to assure them that this process is not in violation of state law,” Love said. “Likewise, it turns out not going to be going into every clinic and letting them know that what they are doing is within state law.”
Love hopes that some Republicans will pass their own version of a bill protecting IVF. He’s received numerous emails asking for him and other legislators to clarify the legality of IVF.
“If one of them wants to carry the bill, I'm fine with that,” Love said. “Just want to get it done.”