Consider This from NPR - Trying To Protect Access To IVF

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

The backlash to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling designating frozen embryos has been intense. Republicans at the state and national level have openly disagreed with the decision. And Democrats have used the ruling to hammer Republicans over reproductive rights. Last month, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth introduced a bill to protect IVF. It hasn't gotten a lot of attention - until now. Duckworth used IVF to build her own family, and has been warning since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that the decision could lead to reproductive rights being challenged.Duckworth discusses her legislation and whether she thinks republicans will support it.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

her embryo, I must tell you, was beautiful. In 2019, Brittany Stewart gave birth to a baby girl. Her name's Emerson. Emerson was conceived by IVF, in vitro fertilization. IVF allows those who can't naturally conceive and carry a pregnancy to term a chance to bear children. With the help of doctors and scientists, they create embryos that hopefully grow their family. Yeah, Dr. Milizia, I call her, you know, she's our fertility godmother, if you will. So she is directly responsible for my amazing daughter.

Dr. Beth Milizia is an infertility specialist at Alabama Fertility in Birmingham and Stewart's doctor. She was a beautiful little embryo, and now she's a beautiful little person. Dr. Milizia and Brittany Stewart spoke with my colleague Mary Louise Kelly after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children, and someone who discards them can be held liable for wrongful death. That puts Stewart and her doctor in an untenable position. Stewart has one embryo left from her first round of IVF. That embryo is in a freezer in Birmingham, and Stewart currently lives in Virginia. She could fly back to Alabama to get

a transfer, having the embryo placed in her uterus to see if it'll develop and if she'll get pregnant, but that new ruling in Alabama has Stewart hesitant about attempting this. She was a beautiful embryo, you know, but yeah, I've got the first picture of her and she's probably a hundred cells, right? But she wasn't a person to me at that point. And now that Stewart is trying to conceive for a second time via IVF, she isn't sure what the consequences would be if she were to try to transfer that embryo and it doesn't become a pregnancy. What does that mean? What does that look like? Does that mean we've murdered a child? Like that's that's just kind of almost it's astonishing. I can't think of another word other than, you know, it's just surreal. The Alabama

ruling is putting hopeful parents in limbo and doctors who provide IVF like like Dr. Milizia, on shaky legal ground. There are many questions and not a lot of answers at this point. Like what happens if an embryo doesn't materialize into a pregnancy? We have some patients that are in active treatment and on medications that it's not safe for them to stop their treatment at this point. So we are continuing with those patients. We have put on hold a frozen embryo transfer. We are hoping to have protocols and consents in place that would allow us to move

forward. Republican State Senator Tim Nelson has a bill that he says would protect IVF treatment by making clear that embryos are not children unless they are implanted in a uterus. This is all just another hurdle for people like Brittany Stewart, who are still trying to expand their families. This is where I have a hard time because this isn't just about Alabama, right? This is a nationwide conversation where we've got to understand science. If we could just get it, if we could kind of like take the temperature down a little bit and talk about this rationally, you know, where can this embryo grow and thrive?

You know, and that's what we want to happen. To limit options for families that are trying to grow, it's just really kind of unthinkable, but here we are. Consider this. An Alabama court says a person can be held legally responsible if frozen embryos are destroyed. And this could go beyond Alabama to other states that have personhood statutes saying life and rights begin at conception. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Tuesday, February 27th. It's Consider This from NPR. The backlash to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling has been intense. Republicans at the state and national level have openly disagreed with the decision, and Democrats have used the ruling to hammer Republicans over reproductive rights.

Last month, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth introduced a bill to protect IVF. It didn't get a lot of attention until the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. On the day I interviewed her, Alabama Republicans were preparing to introduce a bill that would protect IVF in the state. And I asked if she was happy to see that. No, because they're covering their butts on this. I'm sorry. I spent 23 years in the army, so you have to watch my language. They're just trying to cover themselves. They're the ones that pass the legislation. They're the ones that put these very extreme Supreme Court justices on the bench that are passing these rulings. So this is not just about one state and one Republican state politician who wants to try to cover his butt on this. have for decades now worked as hard as they can to give rights to a fertilized egg that are far greater than a living, breathing human being

and to take away women's access to reproductive health care. As Senator Duckworth explained to me, she used IVF to start her own family. So post my wartime service in Iraq, I struggled for about 10 years with infertility, attempting to conceive. And it was only through IVF that I was able to have my two beautiful girls, Abigail and Miley Pearl. But it took 10 years for Abigail to be born and many, many cycles of fertility treatments to get to the point where I have these gorgeous girls. So you know what goes into this firsthand from personal experience. Yes.

And the Alabama Supreme Court ruling does not outlaw IVF explicitly, but people who destroy frozen embryos could be prosecuted. Now, the state attorney general put out a statement saying he does not intend to go after IVF families or providers in Alabama. But where do you think this leaves the procedure? Well, this leaves the procedure? Well, this leaves a procedure in a place where you can't actually move forward with it. You can't just rely on one attorney general who's got a limited term, right? This lays the foundation for basically outlawing anything that involves the destruction of a fertilized egg. And it's the natural progression of where we are with the fall of Roe v. Wade

and in this movement towards identifying a fertilized egg as a human being with more rights than the woman that's going to carry that fertilized egg. And so I've been talking about this for years now. And this bill that I'm introducing tomorrow, I've introduced before and said, listen, we have a problem here because, you know, in my case, we fertilized five eggs. Three of them were deemed non-viable. And we discarded the three non-viable because if I were to implant those, I would have had a miscarriage with all three eggs. And my doctor in 2013 said, Tammy, with these personhood amendments, these personhood definitions that these groups are pushing for, I could be convicted of manslaughter or murder for throwing out those three non-viable eggs.

And so we could no longer practice reproductive medicine. Well, as you say, you've been introducing bills like the latest one since before the Alabama Supreme Court ruling came down. Since that decision was issued, have you heard from your Republican colleagues? Have you spoken with people like Senator Susan Collins of Maine or Independent Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example? Well, I've spoken with them on this for well over four years now. And since the Alabama Supreme Court decision, it's been crickets. I've not heard from a single Republican that I've contacted asking if they would co-sponsor this.

And so they've not come back to me since the decision. And by the way, the one Republican, there's a House bill that's the companion to my Senate bill. The one Republican that's on it is actively working to get herself taken off the bill right now. So it's very clear that Republicans believe that a fertilized egg has more rights than a woman and that they do not support IVF, no matter what they're saying. Well, but Donald Trump has said he supports IVF. So has Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and other Republican leaders. And so how do you square your saying that they all clearly oppose this with the public statements they've been making? Well, they've also made public statements supporting and taking credit in Donald Trump's case for the fall of Roe v. Wade. They take full credit. Donald Trump takes full credit for supporting the repealing of Roe v. Wade. So you can't have both. It's hypocritical

to say that you do both. And in fact, there are more Republicans sign on to a bill that defines legislatively that a fertilized egg is a human being, then there are any Republicans. There are no Republicans on this bill that guarantees the right to access to reproductive technology. But there are well over 100 Republicans on a bill that says a fertilized egg is a human being. We're having this conversation in the morning, and Alabama lawmakers could introduce legislation as soon as today to protect IVF in the state. That effort is being led by Republicans. Are you happy to see them potentially take that step?

No, because they're covering their butts on this. I'm sorry. I spent 23 years in the Army, so you have to watch my language. They're just trying to cover themselves. They're the ones that pass the legislation. They're the ones that put these very extreme Supreme Court justices on the bench that are passing these rulings. And by the way, it's not just Alabama. Women all across, families all across this country are not protected in terms of their access to reproductive health care. Texas Right to Life, Ari, has said, their leadership has said that they want control of all the embryos. And on their webpage, they said that the only way they would support IVF is if every single embryo that's created is implanted, meaning that if you have non-viable embryos, those have to be implanted too, which you know would lead to a miscarriage. And even then, they would only be neutral. Amy Coney

Barrett, our Supreme Court Justice, supported St. Joseph County Right to Life, who opposed IVF. So this is not just about one state and one Republican state politician who wants to try to cover his butt on this. This is about the fact that Republicans across the nation have for decades now worked as hard as they can to give rights to a fertilized egg that are far greater than a living, breathing human being and to take away women's access to reproductive health care. I'm generalizing here, but many Republicans seem to be saying, we can oppose abortion and support IVF. And I hear you saying reproductive rights are reproductive rights and you can't pick and choose. Is it possible that that's going to get in the way of your efforts to build bipartisan support for this IVF bill that you want to see pass?

I've been trying to build bipartisan support for well over four years, and they're not coming forward. It's not about their limiting access to abortion. It's about them defining a fertilized egg as a human being and that that is the basis on which they are limiting access to abortion. Roe v. Wade had limits to abortion, but Republicans were not satisfied with that. They wanted to define a human being as beginning the minute an egg is fertilized, which, by the way, also prohibits not just IVF, but, for example, IUDs, a contraception that prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg. And you're seeing physicians all across this country who are now unable to practice medicine. We're losing OBGYNs because they can't do their jobs and take care of women with these laws that are being passed all across the country.

That takes away the ability for them to watch out for and take care of women's health care. You know, in the years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats have found that reproductive rights are consistently a winning issue whenever the question is on the ballot. As I mentioned, you are a co-chair of the Biden-Harris re-election campaign. And I know that for the personal reasons we've discussed, you object to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. But is there also a part of you that sees it as a political gift to your party in an election year? I don't think the women in Alabama who are having their access to IVF block see this as a political issue.

They see this as a very deeply personal issue. But as co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign, is there any part of you that thinks you could use this? As chair of the Biden-Harris campaign, I can tell you this. Joe Biden has been the biggest supporter of women's right to reproductive health care. He's been consistent in terms of supporting women's right to make their own reproductive health care decisions. And so let's make it clear what the choices are. The guy who took down Roe v. Wade,

or the man who's been standing up for women's rights for decades now. I'm glad that I'm a Biden-Harris co-chair because I know where Joe Biden stands. It's with women and families. That is Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Thank you. This episode was produced by Lina Muhammad and Brianna Scott. It was edited by Sarah Handel and Courtney Dorney. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.