TITLE: RFK Jr.'s vice presidential pick calls IVF ‘one of the biggest lies being told about women’s health’
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/28/robert-f-kennedy-vice-president-nicole-shanahan-ivf-00149523
EXCERPT: Nicole Shanahan has for years denounced IVF — calling it “one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.”
At the same time, she has also been a vocal proponent of and financial backer for unconventional research into the possibility of helping women having children into their 50s and exploring no-cost interventions to help women conceive, such as exposure to sunlight.
“I’m not sure that there has been a really thorough mitochondrial respiration study on the effects of two hours of morning sunlight on reproductive health. I would love to fund something like that,” Shanahan said to a 2023 panel with the National Academy of Medicine, a group to which she had previously donated $100 million.
The statement was met with chuckles, “Yeah, let’s do it,” she added. “I just have an intuition that could be interesting and maybe work.”
As a candidate, her criticisms of IVF have taken on heightened importance following an Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that embryos are children, which briefly forced clinics in the states to pause operations. Republicans and Democrats — including both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — rushed to defend the procedure, which is broadly popular.
The 38-year-old’s opposition to IVF and skepticism of the fertility industry makes her an outlier in the presidential field — though she has not called for banning the procedure.
Kennedy has not weighed in on IVF access, and has made conflicting comments about abortion access. At the Iowa State Fair, Kennedy, 70, said he supported a ban on abortion after 15 or 21 weeks of pregnancy, but then his campaign said he misunderstood the question and does not support such a ban.
And in a personal essay for People Magazine in 2022, in which she detailed her split from her ex-husband and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, she said, “I believe IVF is sold irresponsibly, and in my own experience with natural childbirth has led me to understand that the fertility industry is deeply flawed.”
IVF has been used to help parents conceive for decades, and today accounts for about 2 percent of all births in the U.S. These criticisms come from “junk science,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, which has endorsed Biden.
“Reasonable people could have concerns with bioethics, or a lot of us have concerns with how a lot of science is marketed and mass produced, right?” Timmaraju said. “I’m sure there’s a tiny little kernel and rationale behind all of this. But at the end of the day, IVF has been a long-established reproductive health technology, and Nicole Shanahan, bless her, is not a medical expert.”
Shanahan had a personal experience with IVF. While trying to conceive her first child, she was told she would not be a good candidate for IVF because she had polycystic ovary syndrome, according to an interview she gave to The New Yorker in 2023. Two years later, she naturally conceived her daughter. Shanahan said she was unhappy with her experience and began funding research into “reproductive longevity,” which she said is “the natural progression of the women’s rights movement.”
TITLE: Missouri Democrat Debuts Ad Linking GOP Sen. Josh Hawley To Anti-IVF Efforts
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/josh-hawley-lucas-kunce-missouri-senate-race-ivf-access_n_66049883e4b03f25dbfd6444
EXCERPT: Democrat Lucas Kunce, who hopes to take Hawley’s Senate seat in November, is launching a five-figure ad buy beginning Monday with a 30-second spot in which a Missouri mother describes having a baby after in vitro fertilization treatment and claims Hawley wouldn’t protect people’s right to the procedure. Hawley has previously denied taking that position.
“I just had this beautiful baby, and I held her and I just, like, knew I was meant to be her mom,” the Missouri woman, named Jessica, says. “Now there are efforts to ban IVF, and Josh Hawley got them started. Josh Hawley has proven that he won’t protect IVF and he would let politicians make me a criminal.
“I want Josh Hawley to look me in the eye and tell me that I can’t have a child that I deserve,” she says.
The spot will air during shows on network and cable TV designed to appeal to women, such as “The Masked Singer,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Real Housewives of Potomac,” Kunce’s campaign said.
“It’s not just about access to IVF,” Kunce told HuffPost. “That’s just the current moment. Missourians want to have the ability to control their own lives. We want the resources to make our own decisions, and we want the government to get out of the way ... IVF is such a great example of the extreme he’s willing to go to control other people’s lives.”
The ad cites a recent Guardian report about Hawley’s legal work for Hobby Lobby, which the Supreme Court sided with in its landmark 2014 decision that “for-profit religious corporations” shouldn’t have to provide employees with birth control under the Affordable Care Act. Hawley was part of the legal team that likened contraception to an abortifacient, a drug that terminates a pregnancy.
The ad also cites Hawley’s support of a federal court nominee under former President Donald Trump who opposed IVF and surrogate birth.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruling last month that declared frozen embryos the same as children under Alabama law is a political land mine for anti-abortion Republicans who’ve tried to distance themselves from the unpopular decision.
Hawley said after the ruling that he’s “pro-IVF” and noted it’s protected under his state’s law and should be everywhere. The Alabama ruling still sparked concerns in Missouri, where the law states that life begins at conception and abortion is banned with limited exceptions, about continued access to fertility treatments.
In a statement to HuffPost, Hawley spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “This is dumb. Josh is 100% pro-life and 100% pro-IVF.”
TITLE: The Alabama Democrat who flipped a seat in Trump country
https://www.semafor.com/article/03/27/2024/democrats-flip-alabama-seat
EXCERPTS: The climate changed, said [Marilyn] Lands, after the Dobbs decision — and after the state Supreme Court ruled that embryos frozen as part of IVF had the legal rights of children. Republicans in Montgomery tried to react, quickly passing legislation that granted legal immunity to fertility clinics. Lands’ opponent, Republican Teddy Powell, endorsed the change.
“Protecting the sanctity of life while supporting women’s access to IVF treatments go hand in hand,” Powell wrote on Facebook.”
But that didn’t alter the dynamics of the race, as Lands campaigned against the state’s total abortion ban, favoring a return to the status quo under Roe v. Wade. She was endorsed by Mike Ball, a Republican who used to represent the seat, but said that “the party of Trump” had left him.
…
Last month, Rep. Tom Suozzi won back his old House seat on Long Island, a race that Republicans tried to turn into a referendum on crime and illegal immigration, partly by attacking his opponent’s anti-abortion views. (Republican Mazi Pilip gave inconsistent answers on abortion after calling herself “pro-life,” and won’t seek the seat again in November.) House Republicans workshopped new abortion messaging at their retreat this month, but didn’t come up with more than a promise to talk about the topic before Democrats could define it, and to support IVF.
They did both in Alabama, but the current Democratic coalition — more highly-educated, more likely to vote in every race — was energized by the IVF ruling. [Marilyn] Lands attracted more than 1100 donors, for an election with fewer than 6000 voters. At high-profile moments for Alabama Republicans, including the poorly-received, immigration-focused State of the Union response from Sen. Katie Britt, they got outplayed.
In a Wednesday night statement, Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez called [Marilyn] Lands a “pro-choice champion,” and said that the same issues would help the president get re-elected.
“Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, paving the way for attacks on women’s freedoms like we saw in Alabama – now he’s running to ban abortion and gut access to IVF nationwide,” she said. “Tonight’s results should serve as a major warning sign for Trump: voters will not stand for his attacks on reproductive health care. This November will be no different.”