Democratic congressional candidate in Michigan airs first IVF ad of election cycle

Michigan voters on Friday will see the first television commercial of the campaign cycle featuring a Democratic candidate for Congress talking about her experience using IVF to start a family.

The spot offers a glimpse of how Democrats plan to put the issue of access to fertility treatments and reproductive health care in general at the center of campaigns across the country after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children.

In the ad, Jessica Swartz, an attorney challenging Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga in southwestern Michigan, speaks directly to the camera about her struggle to conceive.

“More than anything, we wanted to start a family,” Mrs. Swartz says in the ad, in which she sits on the couch with her husband and looks through their wedding photo album. “But like millions of Americans, we were struggling.”

“IVF was an answer to our prayers,” she adds, claiming that Mr. Huizenga “wants to roll back our freedoms.”

Ms. Swartz is running in a solidly Republican district, but the issue is expected to resonate in Michigan. In 2022, voters there approved a proposal that created a constitutional state right to reproductive freedom, including decisions “on all matters relating to pregnancy,” such as abortion and contraception. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made the fight for abortion rights central to her political identity.

In Congress, Mr. Huizenga is co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act, a nationwide abortion ban that could severely limit IVF treatments, which typically involve the creation of multiple embryos, only one of which is implanted while the others are frozen. enable subsequent attempts at successful implantation.

Since the Alabama ruling, Republicans in Congress have rushed to express their support for in vitro fertilization treatment — even though the bill, which many of them have supported, states that life begins at the moment of conception , which could severely limit or even prohibit certain aspects. of the procedure.

Mr. Huizenga did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on his position on IVF or on the attacks from any of his opponents.

“My family is important – and so is yours,” Ms. Swartz says in the ad, describing herself as a “pro-choice mom for Congress.”

Ms. Swartz’s campaign spent $100,000 on the ad buy, which will begin on cable channels and air.