Susan Wild, Debbie Wasserman Schultz And Sydney Kamlager-Dove Hold Press Briefing On Protecting IVF
On Thursday, Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D-FL), and Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) held a press briefing on proposed IVF legislation.
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NewsTranscript
00:00you
00:30for those of you who don't know and I we're here to bring attention to the
00:43Access to Family Building Act which is a bill that I drafted in the year
00:49following the Dobbs decision. Today the Senate is holding a vote on the companion
00:55to that bill. The Access to Family Building Act would protect families
01:00across America from extreme judges and politicians who want to tell them how
01:06and when and whether they can start or grow their families, specifically when it
01:12comes to utilizing assisted reproductive technologies. Women's autonomy to make
01:18their own medical decisions should not be up for debate and their bodies should
01:23not be pawns used by politicians to score cheap political points. We've seen
01:28the attacks on reproductive health care that have happened in the wake of Dobbs
01:35and earlier this year, as many of you know, the Alabama Supreme Court made the
01:40cruel decision to ignore medical science and classify frozen embryos as children
01:47prompting fertility clinics across the state of Alabama to pause treatment IVF
01:54treatments on women that were already in progress and I'm not going to get into
02:01the science here but I'm happy to talk about it with anybody who wishes to. IVF
02:06is a process. It is a long process. It's not something that you just go to the doctor
02:10one time and this happens. So having to call and it's it's expensive, it's
02:16painful, and it's very drawn out and so this pause in women's treatment
02:24across the state of Alabama was devastating. It also does all kinds of
02:30it wreaks havoc on a woman's body to just abruptly stop what's happening in
02:34the IVF process. So and in addition to that it just threw the lives of couples
02:42across the state into disarray. People who were longing and hoping for children
02:48and IVF for most people who use it is close to a step of last resort if not
02:56the last resort. So these are people who had already gone through long arduous
03:01journeys to get to where they were. So in the aftermath of that terrible decision
03:06so many of my colleagues including so many of the people here spoke out
03:11sharing their personal experiences with infertility and reproductive technologies
03:16and sharing their support for the Access to Family Building Act and protecting IVF
03:22as well as other assisted reproductive technologies for all Americans and so
03:27I'm grateful for everyone's support here. It's time I believe for Americans to see
03:33where all members of the House of Representatives stand on this critically
03:37important issue. We've heard a lot of noise from people who say they don't
03:45agree with the Alabama decision and yet they have not rushed to sign on to this
03:52bill and when I say people I'm talking about my colleagues across the aisle.
03:57Right now we have four Republicans who have signed on and yet many many claim
04:02to support IVF. So words of support are nice to hear but Americans need action
04:10not empty promises and so I'm asking my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to
04:16put their money where their mouth is. Join me as a co-sponsor of this bill and
04:20let's get this to a vote on the House floor and just on a personal note I have
04:25to say that being a parent to my two adult children Clay who's now 31 and
04:31Adrienne who's 28 is the greatest joy of my life. They are my rocks but I too
04:36struggled with infertility for years before I had my firstborn. I remember it
04:41all too well even though he's now 31 years old. It's traumatic and it's I just
04:48can't explain what it's like when you actually finally conceive and then give
04:54birth to a child and that feeling of relief that you're going to be able to
04:58do something that so many people just take for granted. So I'm really thankful
05:03that when I underwent this when I was looking to grow my family I had access
05:09to multiple multiple forms of reproductive technologies not all forms
05:17they have now but even so over the course of my struggle with it I went
05:21through heartbreak, fear, desperation, this feeling of this is never going to
05:27happen for me and my husband and so it just makes me and I put myself in other
05:34women's shoes other couples shoes when I think about them being denied IVF access
05:42and it just infuriates me that judges and politicians people with no medical
05:48background no credentials no expertise think that they have any right to tell
05:53these women what they can do with their bodies or these couples whether they're
05:57going to be able to pursue what may be their only chance at growing a family. So
06:02I think as legislators our most basic duty is to make life better for the
06:06people we've been sent here to represent. I take this as a very serious
06:10responsibility and I know all of my colleagues on the stage do as well. So
06:15it's a fight we can win I truly believe that if we all work together I do hope
06:21that our colleagues across the aisle will hear the American people loud and
06:26clear and understand that IVF is something that we should be embracing
06:31that we should be encouraging if people need it and I'm going to turn it over to
06:38my colleagues here and first I'm going to turn it over to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to say a few words.
06:47Susan thank you for, thank you for the socks. I gotta go get one of those. Susan you just brought the most joyous memory that my husband and I had in our lives
07:07together when we found out after we went through IVF that it was successful and
07:15that I was pregnant and then when we when we went to our first ultrasound a
07:21couple of weeks later and found out we were having twins we were laughing with
07:26joy literally laughing and I had not thought about that moment in a while so thank you and thank you so much to
07:33Congresswoman Wilds to our colleagues here to my sister Sidney Kamara-Dove
07:39who's also been through the trials of infertility and so many millions of
07:47Americans who are impacted by infertility. I mean I was 29 years old and we had been
07:54trying for a year. We had actually waited, we had been married seven years we you
07:59know took the time to wait build our careers and enjoy some life together
08:05first and in a billion years we never thought, Steve and I, never thought that it would be hard to conceive and after a year of trying we were advised to go to a fertility specialist because it's not a typical result to not be pregnant when you were at that stage of life and so we were told at the time that really because of the
08:34particular problem that we had that the only way we could conceive was through
08:39IDF and and thanks to that incredible incredible scientific miracle we were
08:46able to conceive our twins Rebecca and Jake who are healthy 25 year olds today
08:50and and then we had our third child Shelby naturally so something sorted
08:57itself out thankfully but but seeing that struggle up close I've fought for years
09:02to help expand health care coverage access for a prohibitively expensive
09:07fertility treatment that not just makes it accessible to make it not just
09:12accessible but to affordable to those who need it and here's another important
09:17wrinkle to this especially as we have advanced in the 25 years since I was
09:23fortunate enough to become a parent as a breast cancer survivor I survived breast
09:27cancer after a diagnosis at 41 and learned that I was a carrier of the
09:33BRCA2 genetic mutation which I can pass by myself on to my children and so that
09:40new wrinkle is that we have now spent that time worrying did I pass that
09:47genetic mutation on to my children are they at greater risk for breast cancer
09:51for ovarian cancer for other kinds of cancer and now thanks to the miracle of
09:57IDF and the ability to select out if you go through IDF and you can see you have
10:07a number of embryos you can test the embryos to see whether they carry the
10:13genetic various genetic mutations so my children if God forbid one of them or
10:18any of them have the BRCA2 mutation they can choose when they decide to
10:23have children whether or not whether or not to go through IDF and only implant
10:28embryos that don't carry that mutation and that would end the cycle of genetic
10:33cancer in my family so if you plan IVF not only are you stopping people from
10:42being able to have families and interfering with the most personal
10:45private decisions that a couple makes or that an individual makes that they
10:51choose to have a child on their own you are also preventing life-saving the
10:58life-saving ability to stop cancer and other diseases in their tracks and that
11:04is absolutely unacceptable and we have to make sure that we don't create
11:09anxious desperate frightening families who extreme Republicans are torturing by
11:14threatening the ability to use IVF to start their families or save their
11:20families that's why my cancer survivorship bill expands Medicaid
11:24coverage so that cancer patients aren't forced to forfeit parenthood to stay
11:29alive and now IVF has enabled millions of Americans to deliver babies there
11:34remains substantial medical financial and health equity barriers that stand in
11:38the way of so many who require medical assistance and we cannot allow the
11:41extremist Republican agenda to add yet another barrier to an already difficult
11:47and heartbreaking process by wielding an extreme reading of the Bible only
11:53using one religions version of what is acceptable in terms of decision-making
11:59about fertility Republicans nearly banned IVF in Alabama and after that
12:04some advocates want families to move frozen eggs out of Texas and I fear that
12:09more states will follow these laws place government in our personal family
12:15decisions they inflict legal chaos and uncertainty on doctors fertility clinics
12:19and prospective parents and any state with so-called personhood loss could be
12:23the next Alabama where anxious desperate and frightened families become subject
12:27to this matter Republican torture no judge or politician should have
12:31autonomy over a woman's future future all women deserve the freedom to choose
12:35IVF or any form of fertility treatment to be able to start their families or
12:40birth control or abortion for that matter and for this reason it is
12:43essential that Congress Congress pass Congresswoman Wilde's access to family
12:48building act which will protect IVF and all reproductive care last week
12:52extremist Senate Republicans blocked this bill but hear us now we will not
12:57back down the ability to have children and the timing of building a family is a
13:01basic human right and the access to family building act will ensure that
13:04parents battling infertility and continue to grow their families and
13:09save lives thank you so much Susan thank you thank you Congresswoman and
13:14with that I'll turn it over to Congresswoman
13:27hi everybody I'm Christine Lahan also from the great commonwealth of
13:32Pennsylvania I come here to speak very quickly a couple of things that have not
13:38yet been said that would emphasize why this is important why now the Senate is
13:42taking a vote on this issue right now if you're of a certain age of which I am to
13:48remember your schoolhouse rock there is a requirement that even if that were to
13:52pass on the Senate side that we of course also need to pass that a version
13:56of that at least in that and the house side as well for it to be a law and I do
14:01genuinely believe if push came to shove and everybody were required to make an
14:06honest vote on this that we would vote to pass this on both sides both the
14:10Senate in the house whether or not an honest vote will happen or whether a
14:14vote will happen at all it remains to be seen and that's why I'm standing here to
14:18push the importance of making sure that we take this bill up in the house as
14:22well as in the Senate so that's the first thing is we have an opportunity we
14:25are actually legislators and lawmakers and the American people are demanding
14:29that we settle this and we can settle this so that's the first issue the
14:33second thing I want to emphasize is that Susan and my colleagues inevitably
14:37will also say this is about the right that people have to choose when where
14:42and how and with whom they have a family in a nation where we purportedly value
14:48families we don't do a whole lot to put our money where our mouth is and this is
14:52one way in which we can do that I will highlight and elevate two communities
14:57that I think are particularly important to me the the veteran and military
15:01community which I believe needs and rights and access to these sorts of
15:06treatments and technologies and also the LGBTQ community as well so I think that
15:11this is something that's not just about our traditional vision and version of a
15:15family but is it a vision of what a family looks like no matter what the
15:19family looks like we have the opportunity the right and the privilege
15:23to have children and that should be protected by the lawmakers of this land
15:27and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak and I pass it back
15:30over to you Susan. Thank you so much for pulling hand and I'd like to invite
15:36Congresswoman Kamala Darduff to make a few remarks. Thank you Susan, and I know I don't need to talk.
15:45So hello everyone, I am Congresswoman Sidney Kamala Darduff from Los Angeles and I really think that it is shameful that once again we
15:54Democrats are standing here talking about this issue and really asking our
16:00Republican colleagues in both the Senate in the House to step up and do their job
16:05and protect women and protect families. Many of us have been sharing stories but
16:13the reality is we are fighting with the federal government and also with states
16:20as they begin to enact laws to really essentially force sterilization through
16:25the constriction of IVF and other IVF and other fertility treatments and that
16:31is not drama I'm saying something very real we are talking about choices being
16:39taken off the table for women. The United States is incredibly provincial when it
16:45comes to sex and talking about sex and also when it comes to talking about the
16:48challenges of conception and yet so many families struggle with trying to
16:53conceive each and every day. My story is I was very excited about the possibility
17:01of trying to have a family. We were unsuccessful in the natural ways and so
17:07we looked to science and I was poked and prodded and had eggs taken from me and all
17:14of these things being put into petri dishes and after months and months many
17:20many months close to a year exhausting many of our financial reserves we had to
17:29turn to IVF and that was a traumatic experience emotionally, financially,
17:36physically, the stress that it puts on a family and extended families, parents
17:42hoping to be grandparents waiting for you to give them the call saying this
17:47has happened and eventually I was successful in having three stepchildren.
17:54My story is not dissimilar from many others. What I had though was the option
18:02I had the choice to use fertility treatments to help me with my journey
18:09and that is what is being taken away. The Roe vs. Wade which was decided when I
18:15was in college you know 50 years later was overturned is just staggering to me
18:22and so I just think something that we took as I said some things that we take
18:28for granted you know personal liberties which everybody claims to consider to be
18:34incredibly important. I included in that the right to control your own body so I
18:39think what we have learned is not to ever underestimate the GOP in terms of
18:45their willingness to infringe upon people's rights and liberties and the
18:52only thing I'll add is that another important element of what we've learned
18:57is that you have to make sure that voters understand that post Roe post
19:01Dobbs reproductive freedom is on the ballot and that is not specifically
19:06defined or limited just to a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy and
19:11leaving that decision between her family and her faith and her doctor that any form of
19:18reproductive freedom is on the ballot because we need to make sure that we
19:22have a reproductive a pro reproductive freedom majority in the United States
19:29yes thank you so in the Senate Republicans actually today introduced a
19:36bill to promote restorative reproductive medicine which is a practice that
19:41anti-abortion groups say it's an ethical alternative to IVF and reproductive
19:45technologies and well while also saying that they don't oppose that they don't
19:50oppose IVF and so I wanted to get your reaction is it something that you think
19:53you can work with Republicans on I have not seen that proposal yet I will tell
19:59you that in the house we had at least one Republican colleague who introduced
20:05what was supposed to be her version of protecting IVF and it turned out to be a
20:11completely non-binding resolution a statement of support which doesn't do
20:15anybody any good if their rights are being taken away so I have to look at it
20:20I'm happy to work with anybody on this issue but I am skeptical about whether
20:26it does what it needs to do I have a two-parter if that's okay how about the
20:31first part but then I go to somebody else sure um the handful of Republican
20:35co-sponsors that you have on this bill have you spoken to them about a
20:38potential discharge petition to force a floor vote I'm in the midst of doing that
20:43a couple of them I haven't been able to find on the floor I've spoken to a
20:47couple of them they're aware that we are considering that it would we would
20:53if we have to do that we will go to discharge petition route but you all
20:59know that you know discharge petitions are challenging you've got to get 218
21:03people to sign we have 213 Democrats as of last count so if we got all the
21:09Democrats and the four Republicans who have signed on we're still short one I
21:13wouldn't mind being in that position and trying to find that one Republican
21:17who's brave enough to to sign the discharge petition so we're working on
21:22it is the answer yes so thank you congresswoman so Donald Trump met with
21:27congressional Republicans today and he has notably come out and said that he
21:32does support IVF in the wake of the Alabama ruling I'm wondering how you
21:34think that votes both for today's Senate vote and for your bill in the house I I
21:40hope that it bodes well for the Senate vote I didn't hear his remarks I've read
21:47you know this much and I but it I know that the president Trump has said that
21:57in the past right after in fact shortly after the Alabama decision he made
22:01remarks like that and yet we haven't seen anything on the GOP side that's
22:05that's meaningful and substantive on this issue so as I said in my remarks
22:12actions speak a lot louder than words so I hope his comments I I didn't hear them
22:19and but I hope they're helpful to the Senate vote today but who knows and will
22:24it get a vote in the house I you know under today's leadership of the house
22:31absent a discharge petition it's very hard to imagine this coming to a vote
22:35and I'll just add comments are not codification we need codification not
22:41comments because the only way that we can ensure that women's reproductive
22:46decisions aren't further eroded like they were completely obliterated with
22:50DOPS is to put it in federal law and ensure that like Congresswoman Wiles' bill
22:56does ensure the right to making your own family planning family building
23:01decisions including IVF that are protected you talked a little bit about
23:07this but can you tell me what the how you sort of get a vote on this or what's
23:11the plan for kind of generating this is a like a giving support for us curious
23:15what is your scope well the plan is first of all to get as many co-sponsors
23:21as possible on the bill and that is still a work in progress and then
23:27secondly would be most likely in this Congress to do it by way of discharge
23:33petition but as I said before I need to make sure that we have enough support on
23:37the Republican side to make that a meaningful exercise I do think that
23:43putting up a discharge petition report which we have not yet would put a
23:47tremendous amount of favorable pressure on the Republicans who have co-sponsored
23:53it I think there there's a reason they co-sponsored the bill their voters
23:57support IVF and it's it is a I will tell you I know just anecdotally from talking
24:04to people in my district this is really not a political issue of this I mean
24:08Senator Romney is the one who said that he would have fewer grandchildren if it
24:14were not for IVF you know this is something that really has legs on both
24:19sides of the aisle so I think that that may be the only strategy that we can
24:24employ this Congress in January we we may approach it differently yes sir so I
24:32know you sort of address this in an oblique way a little bit but some of the
24:36Republicans are saying that IVF is already legal in all the states and that
24:42this is just a Democrat messaging bill before the election how do you respond to that?
24:46all you have to do is look at real-life examples we know in Alabama that right
24:51after that court decision the clinics shut down their operations paused their
24:57operations I should say and as I mentioned before the process of IVF
25:02is lengthy it's not like you can just say oh not this week maybe we'll come
25:06back to it I mean it's very time sensitive and we've I have constituents
25:13who are military families I mentioned those before who have talked about their
25:18concerns of not being able to get IVF treatment at their next duty station
25:22because that whatever state they might get assigned to has restrictive laws the
25:28problem is that without the certainty of federal codification you are leaving it
25:35up to the whim of state courts state legislators which gives nobody any kind
25:42of confidence about what they can do in this in this area and that's why it's so
25:47important this is not a messaging bill this is literally about one of the most
25:51fundamental rights we have which is to start and grow a family.
25:58some Republicans have proposed restricting surrogacy which obviously with IVF is an
26:03important way many families including LGBTQ families are built their families
26:10with IVF does this is this bill planning to expand to protect surrogacy as well?
26:16we haven't we haven't looked into that yet I don't know yes thanks congresswoman
26:23you mentioned this issue kind of has legs on both sides why do you think it's
26:27been hard for both Republicans and Democrats to come to some kind of
26:29compromise because there are organizations out there that are
26:35lobbying the folks who believe that life begins at conception at the moment of
26:42conception are out there lobbying my GOP colleagues very very hard in a very
26:49threatening kind of way I suspect that most of my colleagues on the other side
26:53of the aisle are not fundamentally opposed to IVF but they are afraid of
26:58the the power of organizations to go out there and misconstrue their support for
27:06this and so I think if they listen to their electorate rather than listening
27:14to lobbying organizations that they will find that their electorate is widely
27:20you have another part yes sorry I know you're here to speak about your bill but
27:24I did want to ask you for your reaction to the Supreme Court ruling today on
27:28Miffett-Briffstone that the plaintiffs had black standing well so I was
27:32initially I have not read the decision yet I was initially very encouraged by
27:38the news however I in the last half hour come to realize that they based their
27:43decision on a matter of standing that the plaintiffs don't have standing
27:47that's my understanding of their decision which so it's not really a
27:50decision on the merits it means that another set of plaintiffs who do have
27:54standing could come forward and we'd get a different decision so obviously we'll
28:00take the win for now but it's it I don't think we should by any means think that
28:05that's an indication that the Supreme Court is going to suddenly be in favor
28:11of women's reproductive rights at the Supreme Court as a whole so I think it's
28:17really important that people understand that it was almost a technicality that
28:21they decided it on that's why it was a unanimous decision yes on IVF I wanted
28:26to ask about all these like IVF Republican bills that they've
28:30introduced are they actually do they have any sort of merit or is this then
28:33kind of responding to the criticism that they've gotten the latter not a single
28:37one has any teeth to it and by the way if there was one that mirrored this or
28:43similar I'd be signing on to it and helping whoever wrote that bill get it
28:48to a vote but if these that's those are those are messaging bills and they they
28:54don't have any teeth yes I have a second question thank you I wanted to ask you
28:59had briefly mentioned the role that religion has played so delegates at the
29:03Southern Baptist Convention yesterday voted to condemn IVF and there's you
29:07know they report that they have nearly 13 million constituents following that
29:13denomination I'm wondering what your response is to that as you know again I
29:17I feel strongly that a medical decision should strictly be between an individual
29:25woman or in case of men's medical treatment a man and their health care
29:30provider and it is up to an individual to make a decision about their faith and
29:37where that enters into their personal decision whatever the medical treatment
29:41might be but there is no reason that let's say it's a politician or a judge
29:47who happens to subscribe to the Southern Baptist thinking on this why should that
29:53person be able to find everybody else who doesn't share in that same religion
29:58just like medical care is a very personal thing and so I that's my
30:05reaction to it we good okay thank you so much for all your interest really
30:12appreciated everybody
30:27but
30:34real on the Senate side