On Sunday afternoon, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.) announced 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 article announcing the bill, 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 asked 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 stated, “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 committed to a pro-life stance when she said,........