[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 34 (Monday, February 26, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Alabama IVF Court Decision

  Madam President, on Alabama and the court decision, last week, the 
Alabama Supreme Court handed down a stunningly radical opinion 
jeopardizing access to in vitro fertilization--IVF--and other forms of 
fertility care.
  The decision by the Alabama court is utterly revolting. The damage it 
will cause women, doctors, and families is both heartbreaking and 
enraging.
  Let's not kid ourselves. This didn't happen in a vacuum. What 
happened in Alabama is a direct consequence--a direct consequence--of 
the hard-right MAGA Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 
Thanks to MAGA extremism, today the United States is an embarrassment 
to the world when it comes to reproductive freedom.
  Here in the 21st century, we live in a country where women have to 
travel hundreds of miles for basic healthcare, where doctors fear 
criminal prosecution for just doing their jobs, where some Republican 
State legislators want to police women's movements, and where families 
who want to get pregnant are worried that even in vitro fertilization 
will be taken away.
  Now we have seen a lot of desperate backpedaling over the past few 
days from Republicans trying to sound reasonable and supportive on 
procedures like IVF because it is dawning on them that their agenda is 
horribly unpopular with most Americans.
  But let us be very, very clear. Republicans who have spent decades 
packing our courts with hard-right judges, who have called for national 
abortion bans, deserve zero benefit of the doubt now that the 
consequences of their agenda are sinking in. The shameful state of 
women's healthcare and women's healthcare freedoms is a product of the 
hard-right Republican agenda. Republicans own what happened in Alabama.
  Let me repeat that. Republicans own what happened in Alabama.
  Republicans own the disasters of Roe v. Wade. And Republicans will 
learn, when it comes to attacks on their personal freedom, the American 
people do not easily forget.

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