IVF protections

Nancy Mace pitches bill with nonbinding IVF protections

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats demanded passage of a bill that would enact federal protections with teeth on Tuesday morning.

ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN

Rep. Nancy Mace is shopping around a nonbinding resolution expressing “strong support” for in vitro fertilization, according to an email from her legislative director obtained by POLITICO — just as Democrats are pushing a bill with concrete protections for the practice.

The South Carolina Republican's office is asking fellow House members of both parties to sign on to the resolution by Thursday, which she's doing “in light of the Supreme Court of Alabama’s ruling that has jeopardized access.” The effort comes as Democrats in both chambers push for a vote on a bill that would enact federal protections for IVF, overriding any state restrictions.

Mace’s resolution praises IVF as a “safe, reliable, and effective” practice that “allows for more couples to achieve pregnancy” and warns that “the ruling by the Supreme Court of Alabama, and any substantially similar ruling or statute, will result in fewer pregnancies and fewer children being born.”

The document also “calls on elected officials at all levels of government to proactively pass legislation to protect access to fertility care” — something Senate Democrats plan to do Wednesday by calling for unanimous consent on their IVF bill. Republicans are expected to block the legislation, something any one senator can do under the expedited procedure.

Mace’s office said Tuesday the congressperson was not aware of Democrats' bill, led by Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) in the House and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) in the Senate.

An aide stressed in a statement to POLITICO that the 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 technologies]."

Wild told POLITICO on Tuesday that Mace's effort doesn't go far enough.

"Their non-binding resolution could not have prevented what happened in Alabama, nor stop any other state from taking steps to ban fertility treatments. If they're actually interested in protecting IVF — as they state in the final line of their resolution — they are more than welcome to co-sponsor my existing bill, the Access to Family Building Act, which would do exactly that," Wild said.

Mace co-sponsored a bill in 2021 that would have granted legal personhood to fetuses from the point of conception with no protections for IVF, but she did not co-sponsor the current version of the bill that was reintroduced in 2023.