More GOP party platforms include anti-IVF language. Is surrogacy next?

“As somebody who is a product of this technology, I always think of it in terms of, ‘Geez, I hope I’m not the last first of something.’”

— Elizabeth Carr, first person born via IVF in the U.S.

In vitro fertilization and surrogacy are common pathways for same-sex couples and other Americans struggling with infertility to have children. 

Yet Republican parties in a handful of states and major anti-abortion groups have grown critical of assisted reproductive technology in recent years. 

Stateline reproductive rights reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris has the story: 

Brooke Green thought she needed a mammogram.

Green, a Democratic state representative in Idaho, knew that breast cancer ran in her family and she “just had an inkling” that she should be tested.

She was two weeks shy of the day her last remaining embryo would be implanted through in vitro fertilization. It was the one shot she had left to give her firstborn son a sibling, since it took several rounds of IVF to get pregnant the first time.

The mammogram confirmed her fears: There was in fact a lump in her breast, and a biopsy of the tumor confirmed it was cancer. Worse yet, it was a type of cancer fueled by estrogen and progesterone, two of the main hormones that skyrocket during pregnancy. She likely could not get pregnant and be treated for cancer at the same time.

“The doctor’s file said if you had gotten pregnant, this could have been a disaster,” Green said.

Several years earlier, Green had cosponsored bipartisan legislation, enacted in July 2023, codifying the best practices already in use by surrogacy agencies in Idaho, a state that has been called the unofficial capital of surrogacy in the United States. Last year, she found herself calling one of the agencies she’d worked with on the bill to ask for their help, this time as a client. She hired a surrogate to carry her second child, another boy, who was born in June.

But opposition to the two ways that Green had her children, IVF and surrogacy, is rising. 

In the past two years, Republicans in Idaho and four other states have added specific anti-IVF language to their state party platforms, and some anti-abortion groups, including Students for Life of America and Live Action, have become increasingly outspoken in their opposition to both practices.  

One reason is that many same-sex couples use both methods to have children, and many conservatives believe children should be raised by heterosexual married couples. Conservative critics also connect surrogacy to immigration, saying it facilitates “birth tourism” and birthright citizenship. And they note that IVF can involve the discarding of some embryos, which they say is akin to abortion.

The latter is connected to the idea that a fetus or embryo is a person, with legal rights. 

As of June, lawmakers in at least 17 states had introduced 36 bills this year that would codify personhood rights for embryos or fetuses, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights advocacy group. Opponents were able to defeat them by arguing that they might limit IVF, which remains broadly popular.

Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., Republicans in Congress have blocked legislation that would directly protect IVF as a fertility treatment. 

Elizabeth Carr, the first IVF baby born 44 years ago in Virginia, said she has been advocating against so-called fetal personhood bills for the past 15 years, but the rhetoric opposing IVF in particular is getting louder and the threats are growing. 

“As somebody who is a product of this technology, I always think of it in terms of, ‘Geez, I hope I’m not the last first of something,’” Carr told Stateline.

Next on our Stories From The States podcast: Ohio Haitians brace for what's next after Trump cancels their TPS

Earlier this year, the Trump administration terminated temporary protective status for hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants. Many communities are preparing for a possible surge of federal immigration enforcement.

However, Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are being targeted and forced to wear ankle monitors, according to local advocates. The community became a focus of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign promise to conduct mass deportations when he falsely accused Haitians there of eating house pets. He vowed to terminate their legal protections in order to deport them.