Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith Blocks Democrats’ Radical IVF Bill But Whiffs On The ‘Why’
Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith used her objection power on Wednesday to block a vote on Democrats’ radical in vitro fertilization bill, which would have legalized the unlimited creation and destruction of embryos in all 50 states via assisted reproductive technology, but her reasoning for opposing the measure does little to satisfy her self-professed pro-life principles.
The bill, proposed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, aimed to largely shield IVF from any regulation but could easily be construed to cover the creation of motherless and fatherless designer babies, commercial surrogacy, experimental transhumanist technologies like artificial wombs, “gene editing,” and reproduction without women. If passed, the legislation would effectively prohibit politicians and states from reining in even the most unethical and immoral aspects of Big Fertility.
“The bill before us today is a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far. Far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF,” Hyde-Smith said during her remarks on the Senate floor. “The act explicitly waives the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and would subject religious and pro-life organizations to crippling lawsuits.”
Hyde-Smith’s decision to decline to grant Democrats unanimous consent came just two years after the Mississippi legislator refused to allow a vote on a bill seeking to codify punishment of states and health institutions attempting to limit third-party child manufacturing.
The bill could technically still survive the traditional legislative introduction process, but there’s no doubt that Hyde-Smith’s legislative protest significantly slows down Democrats’ ploy to capitalize on the controversy over the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent embryo decision to advance their ART agenda.
In the Cotton State, embryos like those that were destroyed by a wayward patient in a Mobile medical facility are considered minors under the state’s civil Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
As Hyde-Smith noted in her address on Wednesday, the ruling recognizing the sanctity of life beginning at conception “did not ban IVF.”
“Nor has any state banned IVF,” she continued.
Yet, Alabama fertility facilities chose to halt their IVF operations due to concern that their “standard practice” of serially creating and discarding unlimited embryos might put them on the legal hook for negligence.
Despite Hyde-Smith’s accurate diagnosis of both the bill’s details and the misinformation campaign surrounding the Alabama ruling, she missed the basic point for opposing ART in the first place.
“I support the ability for mothers and fathers to have total access to IVF and bring new life into the world. I also believe human life should be protected,” she said.
Hyde-Smith claimed that these desires “are not mutually exclusive.” But her adamance for “total access” to ART like IVF suggests she believes hopeful parents should be able to create children by whatever means necessary.
By default, even the “common sense protections” on ART would allow ethically questionable procedures like genetic testing, the premature disposal of embryos deemed “unviable,” reducing the chance of embryo survival via freezing, and the other radical uses of reproductive technologies to continue.
There are approximately one million embryos sitting in cryogenic storage in the U.S. These test tube babies were indefinitely sentenced to life in a temperature-controlled tank by people who had “total access” to an industry that thrives on the solicitation of human creation.
If life begins at conception, which it does, and Hyde-Smith believes “human life should be protected,” she would oppose any and every industry, abortion and big fertility, that treats unborn babies in their most vulnerable forms as medical waste.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
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