Among the hundreds of guests who will fill the House chamber Thursday evening — each invited to telegraph different political messages — will be dozens of Democratic-invited reproductive rights advocates who want to center access to abortion and fertility treatments. election year.

Twenty-eight Democrats in the House of Representatives and at least seven in the Senate chose their guests because of their reproductive health experiences or advocacy backgrounds. They include the first person born in the United States through in vitro fertilization, women who relied on IVF to become pregnant, abortion providers and women who were denied abortion by state bans after learning of fatal fetal abnormalities or developing conditions that threatened their health and fertility. .

It’s all part of an effort by Democrats to emphasize their support for reproductive rights while taking advantage of the tough restrictions imposed by Republican-led states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It’s also a way for them to highlight how Republicans — many of whom have supported abortion bans — have proven their support the concept of fetal personality – have endorsed policies that could jeopardize access to abortion and fertility treatments.

“It is the fight of our lives. We have Republicans – they want to force women to stay pregnant, or prevent women from getting pregnant,” said Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida, who represents Dr. Cherise Felix, a gynecologist who fled Tennessee’s abortion ban to practice at a Planned Parenthood in West Palm Beach. “The threat from Donald Trump is real. It is because of him that Roe v. Wade was overturned, and we know Joe Biden will be a fighter for us.”

After the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos should be considered children, a decision that threatened access to IVF in the state, Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, invited Elizabeth Carr – the first American to laboratory was conceived. Mrs. Carr was born in 1981 in Norfolk, Virginia. (Alabama lawmakers passed a law Wednesday to protect IVF providers from criminal and civil liability.)

“It is more important than ever that we work to protect access to IVF services across the country,” Mr Kaine said in a statement.

Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives, invited Amanda Zurawski, a prosecutor in a lawsuit against Texas abortion ban, who was only allowed to undergo the procedure after going into septic shock when her waters broke at 18 weeks of pregnancy. On Thursday, Ms. Zurawski said she turned to IVF to start a family after the infection she contracted during her previous pregnancy compromised her fertility, and that she moved her frozen embryos abroad after the ruling in Alabama, fearing a similar restriction could come into effect. down in Texas.

Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, Kayla Smith invited, who spent thousands of dollars traveling there for an abortion in 2022 after she was denied one in Idaho after learning her baby — which she insisted Thursday was “highly sought after” — had fatal defects. Ms. Smith is a plaintiff in one lawsuit filed in September challenging Idaho’s abortion ban.

Ms. Murray said it is imperative that Democrats “shine a light on the horrific consequences of Republican abortion bans, which have taken away a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions.”

Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation codify federal abortion rights and to protect access to IVF., but faced Republican opposition. Last week, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, blocked the rapid passage of a bill to protect access to fertility treatments.

“It’s very clear who stands up for women and who trusts women to make decisions about their own bodies and their own health care – it’s Democrats,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, who represents Dr. Amanda Adeleye, a reproductive endocrinologist, invited. “So my reminder to voters is: remember who is looking out for your reproductive rights. They are certainly not Republicans.”

Leelee Ray and her husband, Austin, have been trying to have a child for six years, through insemination procedures, two egg retrievals, four embryo transfers, an ectopic pregnancy that could have been fatal and eight miscarriages.

With four frozen embryos still in storage at a fertility clinic, the Rays, who live in Huntsville, Alabama, decided to change course. In February, they turned to an agency in Colorado, where gestational carrier laws are more forgiving than in Alabama, to find a woman who could carry their baby.

Just days later, it all came to a halt, when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered “ectopic children” under state law and several fertility clinics in the state halted IVF treatments.

“When I called my clinic to ask how quickly I could get my embryos out of state, they told me everything was suspended, including shipping embryos,” Ms. Ray, 35, said.

Hoping to quell national outrage over the court ruling, Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed legislation Wednesday evening that protects IVF clinics from civil actions and criminal charges related to their handling of embryos.

But for would-be parents like the Rays, significant damage had already been done.

The ruling disrupted fertility treatments that are expensive, physically and emotionally taxing, extremely time-sensitive, and consume precious resources that many couples did not have. Their experiences could soon be repeated in other states, as anti-abortion forces push to redefine the beginning of life.

The Rays’ surrogacy contract stated that their embryos had to be sent to Colorado as soon as possible. The surrogacy agency has worked with the couple to extend the deadline, but if the delays continue, the Rays could lose tens of thousands of dollars, as well as access to the surrogacy option they chose.

“I love that many in our Legislature are people of faith who agree with my thoughts and beliefs,” Ms. Ray said. “But this is not the place where the government should get involved.”

“Now people are terrified, and we’ve all been sending texts saying, ‘Let’s move our embryos to California, the most liberal state we can think of, where we think this is the last place this could happen ‘,” she added. .

The court’s ruling caught some patients at crucial, vulnerable points in their treatment.

Jasmine York, 34, an emergency and intensive care unit nurse in Alexander City, Alabama, had just begun a course of medication to prepare for the implantation of a frozen embryo when her doctor called to say the court’s decision process had stopped.

“I was completely surprised,” said Ms. York, who describes herself as a Christian who does not support abortion. (She wears a pin depicting a Christ-like figure in a robe asking, “Do you need me?”

Mrs. York and her husband, Jared, have a 13-year-old daughter from her first marriage, but her husband has no biological children, and they really want a baby. She felt both hopeless and a little angry, she said. “In the end, someone else’s opinion changed my future.”

She added: “Didn’t God give us science? Did he give us the ability to perform all these medical miracles? Isn’t he working through it?’

Rebecca Mathews, a 36-year-old mother of two children through IVF, one of whom is named after her fertility doctor, struggled with several questions as the ruling came down.

She and her husband, Wright, had one frozen embryo left, and their family felt complete. But they hadn’t yet decided whether to try for another pregnancy. “We thought we had time,” said Ms. Mathews, who lives in Montgomery, Ala.

The new law shielding IVF clinics may offer the couple some breathing space, but how much is not clear. The law does not address the underlying legal issue — that frozen embryos are children under state law — and its protections are so broad that it may not survive legal challenges.

“It’s hard enough deciding what to do with these embryos,” Ms Mathews said. “It is a decision you have to make together with your partner and doctor. We don’t need the government to get involved.”

National anti-abortion groups that believe embryos – frozen just days after eggs are fertilized – create life have spoken out against the new law. More than a dozen organizations, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, urged Governor Ivey not to sign the bill, arguing that the court’s ruling “simply requires fertility clinics to exercise due diligence on the lives they create.”

One Alabama lawmaker who argued against the new law, state Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, a Republican from Morgan, Alabama, said the episode had “exposed a silent holocaust that is underway in our state,” adding, “We have to do with the life and death of children.”

Over the past two weeks, many parents and parents-to-be who identify as Christian have struggled with conflicting feelings about the sudden intersection of religious faith and public policy.

Lauren Roth, 30, who has a seven-month-old baby born after IVF, was one of several people who attended a rally in Montgomery in support of legislation to protect clinics. She and many others wore orange, a color that followers say has symbolized fertility since ancient times.

Mrs. Roth and her husband, Jonathan, have seven frozen embryos. She would like to have them all transferred to her uterus, she said, “as long as I am healthy.”

“I personally believe that they are unique beings, created in the image of God, that each is a unique genetic embryo that will never exist again,” Ms. Roth said. “I value the embryos as life, but that is a personal, individual belief.”

Other women undergoing IVF disagreed, saying an embryo in a test tube should not be considered a child.

“It can’t grow into a child outside the womb,” said Mallory Howard, 34, who lives outside Mobile, Ala. “To me that is not fertilization.”

She has two children and was about to start a round of ovarian stimulation in preparation for egg retrieval when the ruling was issued. The procedure was delayed.

The court’s ruling “means that any time you have sex and an egg is fertilized but doesn’t implant, and you never even know about it, that could be considered an abortion,” Ms. Howard said.

“We’re in the South, where people don’t want the government dictating whether or not they should have a gun,” Ms. Howard said. “But they are okay with the government saying reproductive rights are a government issue just because they agree with that agenda.”

Alabama lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation to protect in vitro fertilization providers from civil and criminal liability, ending their fight to allow the fertility treatment after a state Supreme Court ruling ruled that frozen embryos as children should be considered.

But it was unclear whether the protections would be enough for the state’s major fertility clinics to resume treatments. Doctors at one clinic said they were ready to start again as early as the end of this week, while another clinic said they were unsure of the scope of protection and would wait for “legal clarification.”

As the measure went to Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican, for her signature, lawmakers and legal experts acknowledged that the court’s existential questions about the definition of personhood were left unanswered, leaving open the prospect of legal challenges in the future.

The overwhelming vote of support – 81 to 12 with nine abstentions in the House of Representatives and 29 to 1 in the Senate – came just two weeks after the ruling. It showed the intense urgency among Republicans to protect IVF treatments, even if that meant sidestepping the thorny contradictions between their pledge to protect unborn life and fertility treatment practices.

“They’re happy tears, it’s a sigh of relief, just because we know we’re protected,” said Stormie Miller, a Hoover, Ala., mother who had twins through IVF and still has two frozen embryos. Speaking about the future of those embryos, she added: “We can make that decision for ourselves and not let someone make that decision for us.”

Reproductive medicine in the state was thrown into turmoil by the court’s ruling, which applied to a group of families who filed a wrongful death claim over the accidental destruction of their embryos at a clinic in Mobile in 2020. But the interpretation the court’s ruling on Alabama’s statute requiring frozen embryos to be considered children — coupled with an impassioned, theology-driven opinion by the chief justice — sowed fear of civil and criminal liability among doctors and clinics, and raised concerns about the consequences of other states that would take a similar position.

At least three major clinics stopped providing IVF treatments, and an embryo transport company stopped operating in the state. Patients, who said they were already exhausted by the financial, physical and emotional toll of the treatment, begged lawmakers to preserve their chance to grow their families.

And from Montgomery to Washington, Republicans suddenly found themselves rushing to publicly endorse IVF treatments, with some lawmakers sharing their own fertility stories and others calling for a quick legislative fix. The party has already struggled to respond to voters’ concerns about tough anti-abortion laws in a hotly contested presidential year, with President Biden and Democrats pointing to the ruling as yet another sign of Republican domination of women’s lives.

But Alabama Republicans did not address the question of whether a frozen embryo conceived outside the womb should be considered a person. Instead, they quickly negotiated a measure that largely shields clinics and IVF providers from civil and criminal liability and limits shipping companies’ liability to damages to cover “the price paid for the affected in vitro cycle.”

“The problem we’re trying to solve now is getting these families back on track so they can move forward in their effort to have children,” said state Rep. Terri Collins, the lead sponsor of the measure in the House of Representatives . “Should we address that problem? Probably.”

“I don’t want to define life – that’s too important to me, to my faith,” added Ms Collins, who previously led the House of Representatives’ 2019 abortion ban. “But we do have to decide where to start with protection, and I think we need to talk about that.”

Infirmary Health Systems and the Center for Reproductive Medicine, the clinic and doctors involved in the wrongful death lawsuit, said it would not yet resume IVF treatments.

“At this time, we believe the law falls short in addressing the fertilized eggs currently being stored in the state and presents challenges for physicians and fertility clinics trying to help deserving families have children of their own,” the statement said.

Some lawmakers opposed the bill, expressing reservations about whether patients would be able to file negligence lawsuits against doctors and clinics. And some conservatives wondered whether it went too far in supporting a treatment rejected by the Catholic Church and other religious organizations.

“I’m for IVF – it’s just about the treatment of embryos and how we deal with that, and I feel like we need more time to process this,” said Senator Dan Roberts, one of two Republicans who joined on Tuesday abstained from a committee vote. He asked, “Does that embryo have a soul or does it not have a soul?”

Ms. Collins and other senior Republicans suggested a task force could be formed to discuss the issue further. But it was unclear whether that would be enough to clear the murky legal and largely unregulated landscape for IVF treatments.

“The question this bill answers is: Are our fertility clinics liable?” said Clare Ryan, a family law professor at the University of Alabama. “It doesn’t address the bigger questions of: What is the child? When does the act of conception take place? What is the role of uterine implantation?”

Leaders of conservative, religious and anti-abortion groups, including the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group and the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, signed on a letter urging Ms. Ivey to veto the bill to avoid “a knee-jerk reaction to a troubling situation.”

Lawmakers, the groups wrote, “must oppose an ideology that treats people as expendable commodities” and “take into account the millions of human lives that suffer the fate of being discarded or frozen indefinitely, violating the inherent dignity that they possess by virtue of being human.”

The state Supreme Court’s ruling was also based on a constitutional amendment approved by Alabama voters in 2018 to “recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children,” which reflects language that is defended by groups opposed to abortion rights. Because that language is now woven into Alabama’s 1901 Constitution, some experts said the bill was likely to face further legal challenges this week.

“Republicans created this mess for themselves, and now they are trying to limit its damage without addressing the mess itself,” said Susan Pace Hamill, a law professor at the University of Alabama who specializes in the Alabama Constitution. She added, “They’re doing somersaults to avoid directly disrupting something the Alabama Supreme Court has said.”

Democrats had proposed both a constitutional amendment and a measure that explicitly contradicted the ruling’s definition of personality. But Republicans, who have a supermajority, instead focused on their measure, slipping in a clause that would make immunity retroactive to any case or situation that wasn’t already in litigation when the law was passed.

“We’re creating more problems — we need to confront the elephant in the room,” said Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa.

But for the women and some doctors who have been in limbo for two agonizing weeks, the passage of the bill was a welcome relief, with some people in the gallery applauding as the bill passed the House.

Three doctors from the provider Alabama Fertility sat in a row Tuesday at a key Senate committee hearing and reflected on what the past two weeks have been like since they halted IVF treatments at their clinics across the state. They had spent hours deciphering the latest legislative developments and having heartbreaking conversations with their patients.

“She just sobs, ‘I want my baby,'” Dr. recalled. Mamie McLean turns from a conversation. “I usually have something to say. I had nothing to say because we feel that.”

But the bill before them, the doctors said, meant they could resume all their work on Thursday. And the experience made them realize that perhaps they should spend more time talking to lawmakers about their work.

“We must now see this as an extension of our duty to our patients,” said Dr. Michael C. Allemand, adding that “this has opened our eyes.”

Jan Hofman And Sarah Cliff reporting contributed.

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.

The Alabama Legislature is expected to pass legislation Wednesday that would allow fertility clinics in the state to reopen without the specter of crippling lawsuits.

But the measure, which was hastily written and expected to pass by a huge bipartisan margin, does not address the legal question that has led to clinic closures and set off a stormy, politically charged national debate : or embryos frozen and stored for possible future implantation have the legal status of humans.

The Alabama Supreme Court made such a ruling last month, in the context of a claim against a mobile clinic brought by three couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed. The court ruled that these embryos should be considered human under Alabama law and that the couples were entitled to damages for the wrongful death of a child.

Legal experts said the bill, which Gov. Kay Ivey has indicated she will sign, would be the first in the nation to create a legal moat around embryos, blocking lawsuits or prosecutions if they are damaged or destroyed.

But while the measure will likely bring enormous relief to infertility patients whose treatments were abruptly suspended, it will do so in exchange for limiting their ability to sue when embryo mishaps occur. Such restrictions in an area of ​​medicine with limited regulatory oversight could make the new law vulnerable to legal challenges, the experts said.

Here you will find answers to some important questions:

What does the measure do?

It creates two levels of legal immunity. If embryos are damaged or destroyed, direct providers of fertility services, including doctors and clinics, cannot be sued or prosecuted.

Others who handle frozen embryos, including shippers, cryobanks and manufacturers of devices such as storage tanks, have more limited protection, but it is still significant. Patients can sue them for damaged or destroyed embryos, but the only compensation they can receive is reimbursement for costs associated with the affected IVF cycle.

Does the law benefit patients beyond allowing clinics to reopen?

It may have some advantages. The legal shield protecting providers of fertility services also includes individuals who “receive services,” which appears to extend to patients undergoing IVF

Patients in Alabama will have “a cone around how they do IVF and how they treat their embryos,” including donating frozen embryos to medical research, throwing them away, or choosing not to be implanted with embryos with genetic abnormalities, said Barbara Collurathe president of Resolve, a national group representing infertility patients.

That could be particularly important given the recent state Supreme Court ruling.

“Until now, no state has ever declared embryos human. And once you declare that they are human beings, much more compensation becomes available,” he said Benjamin McMichael, an associate professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, specializing in healthcare and tort law. “So this is the first time we have needed such a bill, because we have always treated embryos as property at best.”

Does the measure prevent a patient from suing a fertility provider for negligence?

The law does not cover everyday medical malpractice. If an infertility patient has a dangerous ectopic pregnancy because a doctor accidentally implanted an embryo in her fallopian tube, she can still sue for negligence, Mr. McMichael said. But among her damages, he said, she cannot claim the destroyed embryo.

“The bill does not establish liability or provide an opportunity for injured parties to hold other people liable,” he said. “It just gives immunity.”

Other legal experts said the lines drawn by the legislature were open to question. Judith There, the dean of Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law and an expert in reproductive law, gave the example of an embryologist who switches or otherwise mishandles embryos.

“This bill says there is no recourse for patients for reproductive negligence,” she said. “I don’t think that was the intent, but the plain language of the statute would certainly produce such a result.”

Until now, she said, patients haven’t always won such cases, “but here they don’t even have the option to file a claim.”

The measure is very much a doctor protection bill, she added. “I’m not condemning that, but it doesn’t really meet the needs of patients and in fact seems to deprive them of their rights,” she said.

To the extent that the threat of legal consequences can modulate behavior, she says, “this bill certainly gives providers more permission to worry less about caution because there is no liability at stake.”

Are the wrongful death cases that led to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling now moot?

No, these things can continue. The new legislation exempts all embryo-related lawsuits that are currently being litigated. However, if patients have not yet filed a claim based on the destruction of their embryos, they will not be allowed to file one once the bill is passed.

Does this legislation do anything to resolve the personality controversy?

No. It completely sidesteps the question of whether a frozen embryo is a person. That ruling, at least in the context of a wrongful death claim, still stands in Alabama. Instead of tackling the issue, which has caused a political storm across the country, lawmakers are “trying to cut through the liability side of it and come up with some very complex and counterintuitive measures,” Ms Daar said.

Resolve’s Ms Collura said the proposal solves an immediate problem but leaves the bigger issue hanging. “The status of embryos in Alabama is that they are persons. But what is the mechanism by which clinics can open and patients can receive care?” she said. “Is this the best way? No. Will it open clinics? Yes. Does it create other unintended consequences? Yes.”

Emily Cochrane reporting contributed.

Alabama lawmakers on Thursday overwhelmingly proposed legislation that would protect doctors, clinics and hospitals that offer in vitro fertilization treatments. This cleared a major hurdle in their race to enshrine protections for reproductive medicine into law.

The battle comes after a state Supreme Court ruling this month ruled that frozen embryos must be considered children under Alabama law, disrupting IVF treatment across the state and prompting several clinics to stop offering offering the treatments to avoid possible liability.

The Senate unanimously approved its version of the measure, while the House approved its bill by a 94-6 margin, with some lawmakers abstaining. Final approval is expected in the coming days, and Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has indicated she would support such a proposal.

The rapid pace of legislation underscores how most Alabama Republicans are eager to demonstrate to their voters that they will not stand in the way of the many families turning to IVF as a way to have a child.

National Republicans — including former President Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination — have also been quick to emphasize their support for reproductive medicine and encouraged Alabama lawmakers to take action.

But Thursday’s debate also made clear that the Supreme Court’s ruling has raised complex and uncomfortable questions for Republicans, who must reconcile a long-held belief that life begins at conception with the science of IVF treatment.

Notably, the measures proposed Thursday do not address the court’s claim that frozen embryos should be considered children, but instead aim to protect the treatment providers from civil or criminal liability. It remains unclear, as some lawmakers noted during the debate, whether the legislation will spark new lawsuits or do enough to ensure the continuation of IVF treatments in the state.

And while the votes were overwhelmingly in favor, both Republicans and Democrats expressed frustration with the scope of the legislation. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives objected to a clause that would allow the measure to take effect retroactively for potential cases outside the lawsuit that led to the ruling. They also questioned why lawmakers dropped a bid to end the law in June 2025, which some saw as a possible deadline to force lawmakers to act further.

Representative Terri Collins, the lead Republican author of the legislation in the House of Representatives, framed the measure as a way to ensure clinics can safely reopen in the state as lawmakers grapple with the moral, legal and theological questions surrounding it. granting the rights of a person to an embryo.

“We will have to continue to work together to solve the problem,” she said. “But right now we wanted to get the clinics open so the families could use them, and we did.”

Democrats, who largely joined Republicans in supporting the measures, also questioned whether they were doing enough to protect not only doctors but also parents receiving IVF treatment. Top Democrats have introduced separate bills — including a constitutional amendment — explicitly stating that embryos should not be considered children, but these have been largely ignored by the Republican supermajority.

State Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, said the Republican-drafted bill “requires us to be morally ambiguous and intellectually dishonest at the same time.”

Senate Republicans appeared prepared Wednesday to block a bill that would provide federal protections for in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments, in the wake of an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos should be considered children.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, planned to try to advance the bill on Wednesday under a procedure that allows any senator to object and block the proposal, effectively challenging Republicans to oppose the measure to oppose and the division within the Republican Party is highlighted over how to handle the issue. The The bill would establish a federal right access to IVF and fertility treatments.

Democrats orchestrated the action because they were trying to highlight the hypocrisy of Republicans who rushed to express support for IVF after the Alabama ruling, even though many of them have supported legislation that says life begins on the moment of fertilization. Such a bill could seriously restrict or even ban aspects of the treatments.

“This is really to highlight my Republican colleagues,” Ms. Duckworth said in an interview on Wednesday. “If this is urgent and you care deeply about this, as you say — as you have said for more than 72 hours since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled — then don’t object. Let this bill pass.” She argued that protecting the bill was all the more important since the Republican-majority court decision in Alabama.

The legislation was the latest example of Republicans trying to walk a political tightrope — made more dangerous by the Alabama ruling — since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and made real the fears of many Americans about losing their access to reproductive health care. Democrats have vowed to engage Republicans on the issue this election year, buoyed by polls showing that access to abortion and contraception is a major concern for voters, which could push them away from Republicans.

“Make no mistake: What happened in Alabama is a direct result – a direct consequence – of the far-right MAGA Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader. said Tuesday. “And make no mistake: There will be other terrible, restrictive decisions to come from the Dobbs decision.”

At least three medical providers in Alabama have halted IVF treatments since the ruling, which stemmed from cases filed by couples whose embryos were destroyed in 2020 when a hospital patient removed frozen embryos from tanks of liquid nitrogen and dropped them on the floor.

Mrs. Duckworth previously tried to pass a similar bill by unanimous consent in 2022, but Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, objected. Ms. Duckworth said before Wednesday’s action that she would seek a roll call vote on the bill if Republicans scuttled it, and that Mr. Schumer was “very positive” about scheduling a vote after Congress scuttles the administration funded ahead of a few closing deadlines this year. week and next.

Some Republicans have said they would look at the bill, but most others argued that it should be up to state lawmakers — not the federal government — to protect fertility treatments. They tried to portray the Alabama ruling as an outlier and said the legislature there would surely act quickly to protect IVF

“The Dobbs decision said abortion is not part of the Constitution and they sent the issue back to the states. And I think that’s where it belongs,” said Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe. “But I do support fertility technology.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said he wanted to see how states could address IVF protections before considering federal legislation.

“As these individual states look at all the different issues surrounding this particular issue in particular, you’re going to get some different ideas about how to address it,” Mr. Rounds said on Tuesday. “Personally, I think IVF should be part of our future discussions.”

Sen. Mike Braun, Republican of Indiana, said he believed the Alabama Legislature would pass protections for IVF, making a federal law unnecessary.

“Whether federal legislation is needed, I’m open to considering whatever it may be, but I mean, it happened in such an isolated manner,” Mr. Braun said of the Alabama ruling. He added that each state would “wrestle” with whether frozen embryos should be considered children.

In 2021, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Rounds and Mr. Braun, along with 15 other Republicans, co-sponsored the Law on life at conception, which would recognize a fertilized egg as a person entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment. If introduced, it could severely limit IVF treatments, which typically involve creating multiple embryos, only one of which is implanted, while the others are frozen to allow subsequent attempts at successful implantation.

Same invoice won 166 Republican cosponsors in the House – including Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the current speaker, who issued a statement in support of IVF on Friday

The measure was reintroduced in Parliament in January 2023, but some Republicans who previously sponsored it — including some who face tough reelection races in districts won by President Biden in 2020 — have refrained from applying again. It has not been reintroduced in the Senate.

Anti-abortion activists heralded the Alabama decision as a step toward broader acceptance of fetal personhood, even as Republicans sought to distance themselves from the implication that fertility treatments could be compromised.

“It was incredible to see Republicans rush this weekend to suddenly support IVF, when many of those same Republicans are literally co-sponsoring legislation right now that would enshrine the personhood of the fetus,” said Senator Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, Tuesday. “You cannot support IVF and fetal personhood laws. They are fundamentally incompatible. You’re not fooling anyone.”

House Speaker Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, circulated a non-binding resolution Tuesday expressing support for access to IVF and other fertility treatments. But the measure is purely symbolic and offers no protection for either of them.

Democrats said they would not be shy about reminding voters of Republican data on the issue, which they say will turn moderate and independent voters away from the Republican Party.

“Women will not simply forget who is responsible for this – who took away their dreams of building their families,” Ms Murray said. “This is what happens when Republican politicians take away women’s power over their own bodies.”

Annie Karni reporting contributed.

Alabama lawmakers raced Wednesday to protect the routine practice of in vitro fertilization, focusing on mollifying families and fertility clinics alarmed by a recent state Supreme Court ruling that found that frozen embryos as children must be considered.

The lawmakers’ urgency underscores the imperative for Republicans, who have long maintained that life begins at conception — a tenet of their opposition to abortion — but must now reconcile that position with the reality of how IVF is practiced and the broad public support for it.

Republican leaders across the country have been quick to express support for IVF, with the party already struggling to counter backlash over the tough anti-abortion laws it supported in a crucial election year.

Former President Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, called on the Alabama legislature to protect IVF treatment, while in Florida lawmakers this week set aside a bill that would allow civil lawsuits over the wrongful deaths of would make a fetus possible. .

In Alabama, top Republicans are now coalescing around a proposal that would provide immunity to IVF clinics barring any intentional destruction of embryos outside the usual medical process.

Facing an onslaught of anger from families pursuing the emotionally, financially and physically taxing in-vitro process, lawmakers have set a rapid timetable to pass the measure: It will be discussed in two separate committee hearings on Wednesday, with the goal to have the measure signed into law within a few days.

The Alabama measure – introduced separately in the House of Representatives and the Senate – appears designed to respond to widespread concerns about protecting access to reproductive medicine, while at the same time recognizing the accidental destruction of embryos that led to the death earlier this month ruling resulted.

unlike proposals introduced by Democrats in the state Legislature, the measure does not address whether frozen embryos should be considered unborn children, focusing instead on providing civil and criminal immunity for clinics, hospitals and health care providers.

The court’s ruling, which currently applies only to the families who sued over the destruction of their embryos at a mobile hospital in 2020, has raised national alarms for its explicit ruling that frozen embryos can be considered children . Many people feared that they could face criminal charges for disposing of embryos.

The court ruling prompted at least three major fertility clinics in Alabama to halt IVF treatments and left families across the state fearing it would cut them off from the opportunity to have children through IVF.

Sen. Tim Melson, who introduced the Republican proposal in the Senate, said the bill could achieve its intent of protecting IVF without having to say whether a frozen embryo is a child.

“Some people believe that we don’t need to go down that path when determining when life begins,” said Senator Melson, who has worked as an anesthesiologist and clinical researcher. told reporters in Alabama.

Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office has also said it will not prosecute couples who want to have a child through IVF.

Some lawmakers were skeptical that the measure could do enough without addressing the issue of personhood. Others have suggested that the question of whether a frozen embryo should be considered a child under Alabama law will require a constitutional amendment, which would require voters to weigh in separately from lawmakers.

“It seems like the plan is to go back in time, grant temporary immunity and try to forget this ever happened,” said Rep. Chris England, a Democrat, wrote on social media. “In the meantime, use the next year or so to figure out all the messy issues related to personality and define what life is and when it begins.”

“Hopefully, the temporary immunity will provide sufficient cover for the reopening of IVF clinics,” he added. “And by the way, pray that someone else of status doesn’t sue us in the meantime.”

Some in the Republican Party, especially those aligned with Christian theology that bans fertility treatments, have supported the court’s ruling and see the end of a constitutional right to abortion in 2022 as the beginning of a new fight over reproductive medicine.

“It is unacceptable that the Alabama Legislature has introduced a bill that does not meet pro-life expectations and does not respect the dignity of human life,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a prominent political group, told abortion, in a joint statement with the Alabama Policy Institute. “Alabama can do both: allow the continued practice of IVF with care for those suffering from infertility, and respect the life created by IVF”

David W. Chen reporting contributed.