Politicians are attacking access to IVF

As a member of a team that provides in vitro fertilization (IVF) and an embryologist in the IVF laboratory, I’m deeply disturbed by the recent political attacks on fertility treatments. As we celebrate National Infertility Awareness Week (April 21 to 27), it is important to understand the importance of protecting patients’ access to infertility care to build their families.

Here in Iowa, the House of Representatives passed House File 2575, a bill that would penalize anyone who destroys embryos, intentionally or unintentionally. To put it simply, this bill could threaten patient’s access to fertility treatments. It puts health care providers like me at risk of being prosecuted, making it impossible for us to do our jobs and help people start families.

I love my job. I love helping patients become parents. But I simply cannot risk being thrown in jail for it.

Every day, my staff and I handle delicate, microscopic eggs that can be as small as 0.1 millimeter. While extremely rare, no matter how careful, steady, or experienced one may be, there is a risk that as we handle the embryo an accident could happen that can inadvertently damage or destroy an embryo.

It’s not if these accidents occur — it’s when. And if bills like this one become the law of the land, what happens to providers when these accidents inevitably occur?

Fortunately, this bill failed to advance in the state Senate, and I applaud those who stood up for Iowans and did the right thing.

However, this threat won’t simply go away. These so-called “personhood” bills have been introduced for years and, this time, it got closer in Iowa than ever before. Politicians will no doubt keep pushing these dangerous efforts.

Worse yet, there are similar attacks at the federal level. Unfortunately, our members of Congress have made it clear they are on the side of banning IVF, not protecting it.

My laboratory serves patients in clinics based in Iowa City, Davenport, and Des Moines, sitting within the 1st and 3rd congressional districts, represented by Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn.

Both have refused to sign on to The Access to Family Building Act, which would protect the right to fertility treatments. In fact, Miller-Meeks tried to trick Iowans by co-sponsoring a non-binding resolution that claims support for IVF but in reality does absolutely nothing.

Even more alarming than their lack of action is their past attacks on fertility treatments.

While in the state legislature, Nunn and Miller-Meeks both voted for a bill nearly identical to the so-called “personhood” legislation that passed the Iowa House. Experts deemed it a threat to IVF access.

Miller-Meeks even co-sponsored a similar bill at the federal level, The Life At Conception Act, which bans abortion with no exceptions and effectively bans IVF.

Politicians have no business getting involved in this process. It’s unfathomable that they could be so cruel.

Thanks to the care we provide, countless people have been able to start a family after they had all but lost hope they would ever get the chance. It’s the honor of a lifetime to help people have the greatest gift of all: a family.

To those politicians who offer meaningless words of support but refuse to act and refuse to protect fertility treatments that simply help patients become parents — shame on you. You’re prohibiting people from achieving their dreams of parenthood. Iowans deserve better.

Dr. Amy Sparks is a laboratory director in southeast Iowa and a former president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: IVF access is threatened by politicians in Iowa and in Congress