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NASHVILLE, Tennessee (LifeSiteNews) — The Tennessee House of Representatives has passed a bill that establishes a “right” to in vitro fertilization (IVF), despite the fact that the legislative body is controlled by a Republican supermajority.
The bill, which also codifies access to birth control, passed in a 54-37 vote on Thursday in favor of the measure. All 37 votes in opposition to the bill were Republicans.
READ: In England alone over 2 million IVF embryos killed since 1990
A similar version had already passed the Tennessee Senate.
“This bill is about life,” asserted the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Iris Rudder, who is a Republican. “It brings life into the world. It gives families the right to access IVF. It gives families the opportunity to plan their families through contraceptives.”
“I stand with women in this state and families in this state that want the ability to have these precious babies that they may not have an opportunity to have otherwise,” said Rudder.
One Republican legislator, physician Rep. Sabi Kumar, shockingly claimed that IVF, which destroys human embryos, is “a great gift of science and a great gift from God.”
Rudder explained that although the practices protected in her bill are already legal in the Volunteer State, she feared that pro-life Republican legislators might try to limit access to both IVF and contraception in the future.
READ: 3 House Republicans confront CDC about IVF industry’s ‘destruction of precious life’
“We have the right to IVF and contraceptives in the state of Tennessee,” said Rudder. “But I think as you listen to some of the discussions on this House floor this morning, maybe you can understand why this is a very important bill to codify into law the [so-called] rights of women to continue to be able to access IVF and contraceptives.”
“This bill is a solution in search of a problem with serious negative consequences,” said Rep. Chris Todd. “With the stand we’ve already taken many, many times in this chamber to stand for life, members, I implore you to stand for life once again.”
“You are voting with the ACLU if you vote in favor of this legislation,” warned Republican Rep. Timothy Hill, who proposed reworking the legislation: “Let’s get something that the ACLU has a problem with.”
Rep. Susan Lynn, a Republican, said she feared that codifying IVF is a “slippery slope.”
Impetus for the Tennessee bill came following a ruling in an Alabama court last year that affirmed that embryos are children – bringing an abrupt end to IVF practices in the state.
READ: Lab accidentally destroys thousands of human embryos, faces wrongful death suits
Alabama’s Republican-dominated legislature, panicked by the uproar that the court’s pro-life decision caused, quickly moved to enact a measure providing a carve-out for the IVF industry.
The court’s ruling triggered declarations of support for IVF by both Democrats and Republicans across the country, including then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump, who said, “I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.”
Trump wasn’t alone. Other self-identifying “MAGA” and “America First” Republicans also faulted the court, including former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and conservative professed Catholic commentator Jack Posobiec.
Pro-IVF messaging by Republicans – whether naive or deceitful – is constructed to appeal to all who are pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family, and pro-child.
However, the inconvenient, often hidden, truth about the babies created through IVF is that many of their siblings will be disposed of – aborted – as unnecessary medical byproducts of the IVF process.
When couples or individuals choose to generate children using IVF, many more eggs are fertilized than necessary as an insurance policy in case first attempts at successful pregnancies fail. Stored embryos deemed to be no longer necessary for the clients’ pursuit of a family – often numbering a dozen or more – are discarded as “medical waste.”
The IVF industry cannot survive without the killing of embryos. More to the point: The IVF industry cannot survive without the killing of 93 percent of children the process creates.
“IVF is fraught with ethical and child-harming concerns,” noted Patience Sunne, engagement director for the global children’s rights organization, Them Before Us, during a podcast discussion that asked, “When IVF Becomes a right – who pays the price?”
“A lot of people are ill-equipped to address the issue and default to, ‘IVF creates babies, therefore IVF is good,’” said Sunne.
“Many couples walk into this without really understanding the difficult life and death decisions they will have to make at the end of the IVF process,” said Them Before Us Executive Director Josh Wood.
In a separate podcast on the ethics and risks of IVF, Wood wondered, “Maybe this isn’t the wonderful pro-life industry that we’ve been believing it is.”
Pray for an end to IVF and the protection of human embryos: Join our prayer pledge
