Lindsey and Tim: Men Who Have Thoughts about IVF and Your Ovaries

Photo by Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA

Earlier this week, the US Senate took a vote on Senator Tammy Duckworth’s bill to protect access to IVF. It failed. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott both voted no. For those of you who don’t know what IVF is (let’s face it, some of the Republican men who voted no on this bill probably don’t), it stands for in vitro fertilization. And since we know not all of our SC Congressional delegation passed high school science, “in vitro” means in the lab (or more specifically, in the test tube or petri dish). I digress.

The process of IVF is conceptually pretty simple. The female takes medications to promote the ovaries to produce eggs. As many eggs as possible are harvested through a relatively invasive procedure. Sperm is collected from the male. The egg and sperm are combined in the lab (in vitro!) to form as many embryos as possible based on how many eggs were harvested. Not every egg is successfully fertilized and not every fertilization yields a viable embryo. The embryos are tested for genetic abnormalities and other conditions. The embryos divide in the petri dish and those that pass the screening tests and survive this step may be transferred to the female. The transferred embryos must implant in the uterus for the pregnancy to have a chance of viability. Embryos that are not transferred can be frozen and stored for potential later use, donated to other families or for research, or discarded. 

IVF has been around since 1978. 2% of babies are conceived through IVF. Over 8 million US babies have been conceived this way. 9% of men and 11% of women of reproductive age experience infertility. I guarantee that every single person reading this article knows someone who has tried IVF. So why is the very science-y, very personal topic now a mainstream political issue? Because the 2024 GOP has moved very very far to the anti-woman, anti-science, anti-choice right. And on the extreme right, there has been a longstanding effort to define personhood at the moment of fertilization, in order to pave the way to prosecute women and doctors for abortions. And if personhood begins at the moment of fertilization then all of those embryos that come from an IVF cycle are people. And discarding them becomes murder. Therefore IVF must, by definition, be illegal. 

The personhood movement isn’t new. The Senate debated it in 1983. Which is, as my son reminds me frequently, the “ancient times.” The personhood conversation has been ongoing ever since, but it became much more relevant after Trump appointed three right-wing extremists to our nation’s highest court with the implicit (and now explicitly stated) goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. On Feb 11th, 2021, H.R. 1011 or the “Life At Conception Act”  was introduced. 168 Republicans co-sponsored it, many of whom signed on in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Nancy Mace, along with South Carolina Reps Timmons, Wilson, Norman and Duncan all co-sponsored this bill that would outlaw IVF. Before the Dobbs decision, this was more about political theater and appeasing the anti-choice movement than it was about actually restricting access to IVF. But since Roe fell, it seems anything is possible. 

An Alabama Supreme Court ruling in February 2024 stated that embryos could be considered children, halting IVF treatments in the state until the Governor signed a bill protecting access to IVF. The threat to IVF access isn’t theoretical anymore. At least 13 states have pending personhood bills that could threaten access. Trump’s Project 2025 includes support for federal personhood for embryos, highlighting that this will be a priority in a second Trump term. 

So it is in this context that the Democratic-led Senate has taken two votes to advance debate on Senator Duckworth’s IVF bill. And both times Republicans have blocked it.  Dishonest and unserious Republicans like Nancy Mace will look you in the face and tell you personhood bills have nothing to do with abortion or IVF (she did it to me on the debate stage). Donald Trump himself said he is a “leader in fertilization” (yes he actually said that and yes it made me want to vomit). I presume he meant in vitro fertilization. 

So if the goal isn’t to restrict access to IVF, why did Senate Republicans, including South Carolina’s own tweedle dee and tweedle dum Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott block IVF protections for the second time in a matter of months? Because their party will stop at nothing to control women. They want to know when we menstruate. They want to restrict access to popular forms of contraceptives. They want to prevent women from crossing state lines to seek abortion services. They want to throw women and their doctors in jail. They want to decide when and how you get to have children. Not to mention they also think childless women shouldn’t have a say in the future of this country. There is so much logical fallacy here it will make your head spin. 

If you accept that you have to suspend scientific fact, logic and morality to understand their playbook, it becomes clear that their goal is singular. Control women. Do I think Lindsey and Tim actually care when we menstruate, if we use birth control, or if we use IVF? No. I do not. But that won’t stop them from falling in line with the most extreme voices in their party when it comes time to cast their votes. They blocked federal protections for access to IVF for every single woman in South Carolina (twice) and then they went to their childless homes and probably got a great night’s sleep. We don’t matter to them. All they care about is winning their next election. And that means voting with the extremists in their party, even when that requires abdicating their responsibility to actually represent their constituents. Remember those days? Those really were the ancient times. 

Now, to be clear, I couldn’t care less about whether or not our Senators have children. But because the leaders of their party have decided to wage a war against childless women, it only seems fair that we point out that these two men who will stop at nothing to take away the rights of women, to control if, when and how we have children, were also (until about 6 weeks ago when Tim got married and became a step-parent), in fact, childless. 

And I hear they each have 12 cats. Which is cool. You do you. Just let us do us, too.