A new report details how Speaker Mike Johnson and 124 other House Republicans supported legislation that would ban IVF. In November, and as recently as yesterday, Johnson also refused to say if he supports IVF. He had a chance to clear the record in this report, and Johnson and his office refused to comment.
Business Insider: 125 House Republicans — including Speaker Mike Johnson — back a ‘life at conception’ bill without any IVF exception
Key Points:
- Most House Republicans have cosponsored a bill declaring that life begins from the moment of conception, a position under increased scrutiny after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are “unborn children.”
- This Congress, 125 House Republicans — including Speaker Mike Johnson — have cosponsored the “Life at Conception Act,” which states that the term “human being” includes “all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.”
- The bill does not include any exception for in vitro fertilization (IVF), a reproductive treatment that allows mothers to fertilize several eggs outside the womb in order to increase the chances of a viable pregnancy.
- The lack of an IVF exception is notable, given the carveout contained within a previous version of the Life at Conception Act introduced by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in 2017.
- Republican Rep. Alexander Mooney, the main House sponsor of the bill, did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on why that exception was not included.
- Neither did spokespeople for Speaker Johnson, who largely controls the House floor and whose evangelical Christian views have entailed staunch opposition to abortion in the past.
- “When a woman is pregnant, science tells us the new life she carries is a completely separate and fully new human being from the moment of fertilization,” Johnson said during a 2021 hearing on Texas’s 6-week abortion ban.
Published: Feb 23, 2024 | Last Modified: Feb 27, 2024