Also at issue was Senate Democrats’ insistence that families who make use of IVF should be allowed to discard fertilized embryos — a necessary part of the IVF process and one of the key arguments against IVF from a Catholic perspective — without legal repercussions.
The use of IVF, which necessarily includes a selection process of the “best” embryos, has led to millions of rejected human embryos being discarded and millions more frozen and stored in a state of limbo.
All 49 Senate Republicans, meanwhile, on Wednesday signaled support for IVF — which remains popular among the public — but decried the Democratic-sponsored IVF bill as “fearmongering intended to mislead and confuse the American people.”
As an alternative to the Democratic IVF bill, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama put forth another bill, which Cruz described as a “clear, straightforward, ironclad protection for IVF.” That bill would require that states not prohibit IVF services as a condition of receiving federal Medicaid funding.
Cruz attempted to bring the bill to a vote June 12 but Democrats blocked the measure, with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray arguing that Republican support for “fetal personhood” would undermine the legality of the discarding of fertilized embryos.
The IVF vote comes a week after the U.S. Senate rejected the “Right to Contraception Act,” which would have created a federal right to contraception, with legal implications for religious freedom and protections for minors.
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