Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) began circulating a resolution on Tuesday to House members of both parties aimed at expressing support for in vitro fertilization, calling on “elected officials” to pass legislation protecting the procedure.
The resolution condemns “any judicial ruling” that would “restrict access” to IVF and praises the procedure as a “safe, reliable, and effective” method that allows more couples to “achieve pregnancy,” according to text obtained by the Washington Examiner.
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The text also details infertility as a “psychologically devastating condition” that can lead to anger, stress, depression, and anxiety for couples, and that the Alabama ruling would result in “fewer pregnancies and fewer children being born” while exposing IVF providers to “significant civil and criminal liability.”
Mace told the Washington Examiner that she circulated the resolution to both Democrats and Republicans to build a “consensus of Congress that we support IVF and we should do everything we can to protect access to IVF for women.”
The congresswoman’s office said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that Mace’s hope is that the resolution “gains strong bipartisan support” so she can “build on that with substantive legislation” to protect access to IVF nationwide.
“Her resolution is not in lieu of introducing a bill, but a first step in building a bipartisan coalition to ensure couples struggling with infertility throughout this country have access to IVF, and other [assisted reproductive technology],” the office added.
Mace’s resolution comes two weeks after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children,” prompting hospitals and healthcare systems to halt their IVF programs for fear of liability. The ruling could cause headaches for Mace and other Republicans heading into a critical general election where abortion and women’s healthcare are likely to be top issues that will decide, or alienate, swing voters.
Republican lawmakers and candidates began to distance themselves from the state’s decision on Friday, with Mace saying in a post on X that she would “stop any and all efforts to ban IVF.” The South Carolina congresswoman has frequently chastised her party for being too strict on women’s healthcare issues.
“I am really passionate about women’s issues,” Mace said last week. “I think that sometimes our side gets it wrong: We don’t show compassion to women. In fact, we attack women like myself when I talk about rape, or when I talk about access to birth control, those kinds of things. And this is going to be an issue in ’24.”
Mace was a co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act in 2021, which many regard as a possible threat to IVF as it would have granted legal personhood to fetuses at the point of conception. She was not a co-sponsor of the current version of the bill, which was reintroduced in 2023.
She said in a post on Tuesday that a 2023 resolution she co-sponsored, H.RES.345, sought to “address barriers to infertility-related services.”
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“This legislative action is grounded in the recognition that infertility is a widespread issue affecting diverse populations in terms of age, race, ethnicity, and gender,” the congresswoman said. “So again, we have and always will protect IVF.”
Mace’s resolution comes one day before Senate Democrats are set to call for unanimous consent on a bill sponsored by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Patty Murray (D-WA) to protect IVF and other fertility treatments. The Access to Family Building Act, first introduced in 2022 and reintroduced last month, would guarantee access to IVF and essentially override any state policy restricting those services.