Miss. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith Torpedoes Dem’s Stealth Attempt to Cancel Religious Freedom with IVF Bill

Mississippi Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith scotched the Democrat’s effort to slip through a bill that would have ended religious freedom hidden in a bill to “protect” in vitro fertilization (IVF).

On Friday, Democrat Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth tried to get the upper chamber to give “unanimous consent” to her Access to Family Building Act, a false flag effort to “protect” IVF.

The process of unanimous consent would have automatically passed the bill, but the process also allows a single senator to block it, stopping its automatic passage. Hyde-Smith chose to block, and for some very specific and important reasons.

Emma Waters of the Heritage Foundation blasted Duckworth’s stealth bill.

“Far from merely protecting IVF, this act would establish a statutory right for any adult to access any assisted reproductive technologies to create a child. This would allow, for instance, a child abuser to use reproductive technologies to have a child,” Waters wrote.

Waters went on to noted that the bill would have significant repercussions.

“The act ‘pre-empt[s] any state effort to limit such access,’ including commonsense regulations. This means that Louisiana’s embryo protection act, Colorado’s ban on anonymous gamete donation, or Nebraska’s law that renders surrogacy-for-pay legally unenforceable would all be on the chopping block. Moreover, the act’s broad language would legalize embryo cloning and “designer babies” with CRISPR, a gene editing technology. Both options are unpopular with voters in the United States,” Waters warned.

“If this was not bad enough,” Waters continued, “the act exempts itself from the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. This is the first time an act tries to sidestep RFRA. If passed, it would be detrimental to religious and pro-life organizations. Without religious freedom protections, the act could require that churches or pro-life clinics provide IVF health insurance coverage or access to reproductive technology in their facilities.”

The media is attempting to paint Hyde-Smith as some sort of nut case who is worried about “human-animal hybrid cloning.” But, while she did mention that in her blocking statement, that was not the principal reason she chose to block the bill at all.

In fact, the main reason she voted to block the left’s bill is because it canceled religious freedom by eliminating the rights of anyone who might oppose certain medical practices to protest to the procedures and would have thrown out a blanket protection to all sorts of shocking practices.

The media’s lies have come in so thick that Hyde-Smith put out another statement to address the left-wing media’s broadsides.

“The media headlines and stories painting the picture that I object to IVF are blatantly misleading and some are boldfaced lies. I have been clear about my strong support of IVF and its ability to help bring God’s beautiful creations into the world. Senator Duckworth’s legislation was construed as ‘protecting IVF,’ when in reality, no states have banned or intend to ban IVF. I objected to the unanimous consent request to pass S.3612 due to its broad, sweeping language that would have serious consequences in our goal to protect life and religious freedoms. As Chair of the Pro-Life Caucus, I will always do everything in my power to protect the lives of mothers and children, and felt that this bill was too dangerously opaque to be allowed to bypass Senate procedure.”

Here is her statement made on the floor of the U.S. Senate blocking the unanimous consent:

Madam President, I support the ability for mothers and fathers to have total access to IVF in bringing new life into the world. I also believe human life should be protected. These are not mutually exclusive.

Let’s be clear about what the Alabama case is about. This was a case brought by families whose human embryos were killed when an unauthorized individual walked into the fertility clinic through an unsecured door, removed several human embryos, and dropped them, causing their deaths.

The court’s holding in favor of the parents found that these frozen human embryos are children under Alabama law. It did not ban IVF, nor has any State banned IVF.

The bill before us today is a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far–far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF. The act explicitly waives the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and would subject religious and pro-life organizations to crippling lawsuits.

Religious and pro-life organizations could be forced to facilitate procedures that violate their core beliefs, including their health
insurance plans. This would be the first time the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act introduced by then-Representative Chuck Schumer was explicitly waived.

The bill’s expansion definition of “artificial reproductive technology” sweeps in much more than IVF and has far-reaching implications. It would legalize human cloning. It would legalize commercial surrogacy, including for young girls without parental involvement. It would legalize gene-edited designer babies and lift the Federal ban on the creation of three-parent embryos. It would legalize the creation of human-animal chimeras. Other developed countries like Germany, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as States like Louisiana, have policies that allow for IVF coupled with commonsense protections to respect human life.

Creating rights to human cloning, the genetic engineering of human embryos, and surrogacy is too extreme and goes far beyond IVF. This bill misses the mark.

We should strive to do both, and this bill does not do that. Therefore, I object.

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