‘We owe it to the families.’ Idaho Democrats angered by lack of protection for IVF
Protections for in vitro fertilization aren’t expected to be among the list of accomplished laws this legislative session in Idaho, Democrats said Friday.
Idaho Democrats held an angry news conference Friday afternoon after the Legislature has not passed new legislation on two of their primary priorities with days left in the session: health exceptions for abortions and protections for IVF. Democrats have pushed to defend IVF over concerns that lawmakers could jeopardize fertility treatments in the future.
Lawmakers have passed dozens of bills this year but left in place laws passed two years ago that ban abortions and allow exceptions only for a mother’s life, incest or rape. The session is scheduled to end March 29, and Democratic leaders said Friday that talks with Republicans on these issues were unsuccessful.
“We won’t see protection against future attacks against IVF in Idaho,” said Rep. Brooke Green, D-Boise, who co-sponsored a bill to protect IVF. “We owe it to the families, we owe it to our clinicians to put these protections in place.”
The Alabama Supreme Court startled many Americans in February when it ruled that embryos — the earliest stages of development in a pregnancy — are children. The decision threw women undergoing fertility treatments in Alabama into uncertainty and led to a wave of concern around the country about how laws granting rights to fetuses in other states could be interpreted.
While some Republicans have argued that abortion and IVF are unrelated, abortion rights advocates have said Alabama’s IVF decision was an inevitable result of the broad rights afforded before birth in many state laws.
One of Idaho’s abortion laws says that “the life of each human being begins at fertilization, and preborn children have interests in life, health and well-being that should be protected.” A bill introduced this year would have inserted the term “preborn child” into many parts of Idaho code. The bill did not pass.
Green, whose son was born through IVF, worked with Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, to introduce legislation that would affirmatively protect the procedure. Though Vander Woude is chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee, Green said they were stonewalled from moving the bill forward because of “special interests.”
She instead introduced a personal bill protecting IVF on Friday. Personal bills are introduced without a legislative committee’s vetting and are unlikely to become law.
She said she thinks a bill to protect IVF would pass if it got to the floor in both chambers, and that she worries about lawmakers passing a law similar to Louisiana’s, which allows IVF but forbids frozen embryos from being destroyed. That law, which has been in effect for decades, has led fertility clinics in the state to ship their embryos to other states, adding costs and complications.
Green also said Republicans were circulating a letter of support for IVF. Republican leadership could not immediately be reached by the Idaho Statesman on Friday.
Religious groups split on IVF
The Alabama case has caused a range of reactions from Republicans and anti-abortion advocates, and some religious groups are split on the issue. While many elected Republicans in Congress have said they supported IVF since the Alabama decision,Republicans on the Hill quashed an effort by Democrats last month to pass federal protections for IVF. A representative for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal firm that Attorney General Raúl Labrador hired to represent Idaho in an abortion case before the U.S. Supreme Court, called the decision a “tremendous victory for life.”
David Ripley, the director of Idaho Chooses Life, a prominent anti-abortion group, by phone said he advised legislators not to pass laws related to IVF this year because he thinks the current system works, and that the legal consequences for IVF under Alabama’s wrongful death statute could never happen under Idaho’s current law. He said his organization has no position on the IVF process itself.
“My point to the people worried about this is that they’re worried about something that’s just not a problem here,” he said.
But he said IVF raises “profound moral questions” about what happens to embryos that are not used and how embryos are selected for fertilization.
“I don’t think the Alabama decision was revolutionary, I think the Alabama decision was an expression of self-evident truth,” he said. “Some people want to treat those embryos as though they’re not human beings, but if they’re not human beings, I don’t know what they are.”
In a statement last month, the Idaho Center for Reproductive Medicine, which conducts IVF, said the Alabama decision was “unfounded by medicine and scientific principles” and deprives citizens of their “fundamental right to build a family.”
Idaho abortion bans remain restrictive
Democrats on Friday said they’re worried about the doctors leaving the state as a result of the strict abortion bans that could land doctors in jail.
One report found that 22% of obstetricians in Idaho stopped practicing in the first 15 months after the bans became law, and three rural hospitals have closed labor and delivery centers. Of the nine maternal fetal medicine specialists who practiced in Idaho at the beginning of 2022, only four remained in the state a year later, the Idaho Medical Association previously told the Statesman.
Last year Republicans passed a law to clarify what Idaho’s abortion exceptions are, to include the exception for non-viable pregnancies established by an Idaho Supreme Court ruling. The bill did not include a health exception.
“We can’t wait another year to save women’s lives,” Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, said at the news conference, adding that the current exemptions are “arbitrary, inadequate and difficult for providers to navigate.” She said she heard fears from residents about what might happen if they get pregnant and whether they could be endangered.
“I’m tired of hearing that from young people,” she said. “That’s why they’re leaving.”
