[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 27, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S992]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Alabama IVF Court Decision

  Mr. President, now, on the IVF presser, following the Alabama Supreme 
Court's stunningly radical opinion jeopardizing in vitro fertilization, 
Democrats are taking action to protect every American's right to IVF.
  I just returned from a press conference with Senators Duckworth, 
Murray, and several other of my Democratic colleagues--Senators 
Klobuchar and Baldwin--expressing our support for protecting the right 
to reproductive technology like IVF. I commend Senators Duckworth and 
Murray for their leadership on this issue, and I strongly support their 
efforts to safeguard and strengthen IVF access for all Americans.
  But make no mistake about it, what happened in Alabama is a direct--a 
direct--consequence of the hard-right MAGA Supreme Court's decision to 
overturn Roe v. Wade. And make no mistake about it, there will be other 
awful restrictive decisions emanating from the Dobbs decision.
  And just like the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe, there is 
only one word to describe last week's Alabama Supreme Court decision: 
``shameful.'' It is shameful that families who are trying to get 
pregnant now have to worry that access to in vitro fertilization will 
be taken away. It is shameful that, in the 21st century, women have to 
travel hundreds of miles for basic healthcare and that doctors fear 
criminal prosecution just for doing their jobs. It is shameful that the 
United States has become an embarrassment to the world when it comes to 
reproductive freedom. And it is especially shameful that hard-right 
Republicans--who have spent decades packing our courts with hard-right 
judges who have called for national abortion bans--are now trying to 
backpedal and sound reasonable and supportive of IVF.
  But that backpedaling won't last. It is as if they lit a match, the 
House is now on fire, and they say: ``Why is that house on fire?'' They 
did everything that would lead up to this. We know that.
  So make no mistake, the shameful state of a woman's healthcare and 
reproductive freedoms is a product of the hard-right Republican agenda. 
The minority--the small minority--in this country, the far right, are 
very happy today with this decision, but no one else in America is.
  The American people watched for decades as the hard right led a 
relentless campaign against the fundamental right to choose. 
Republicans aren't fooling anyone by now trying to run away from their 
record.
  Republicans own the disasters of Roe v. Wade. Republicans own what 
happened in Alabama. And Republicans will own the consequences.
  I yield the floor.