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Floor Speech

I am passionate about the value of every single child and grateful for every single child who we have in our Nation and for their potential future. I have friends who are in the process right now of actually adopting embryos that were still frozen. They could not have children of their own, and so they are adopting those embryos to make sure that they are able to come to life. IVF is not a controversial issue for me in that sense. We are passionate about it, as every State now protects that right and continues to honor that.

I understand it has become vogue in this current season right now to be able to say Republicans are somehow opposed to life because they are opposed to IVF. I just don't find that. But within this bill that is actually coming, this bill--actually, part of it came through the Senate Armed Services Committee. That bill, itself, when it came through--it is substantially similar to that--it tried to come to the NDAA and was not included in the NDAA. It had an objection.

The CBO scored it somewhere around a billion dollars a year. This bill, itself, I understand, doesn't have a CBO score because it includes not only that section that was a billion dollars a year but actually includes another section that has not gone through the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. In fact, it was brought up in a previous Congress in the Senate Committee of Veterans' Affairs. It didn't have a hearing on it nor a markup. And then during a Democrat- led Senate and then a Democrat-led Senate, as well, didn't even recently, this session, even have a markup on it.

So all of these issues, I look at and say: This has not been fully vetted through what this actually is and what it actually does, nor the cost of it, much less to be able to have 24 hours later to try to come for unanimous consent.

This bill itself includes some overly broad definitions that I think need some conversation about. Quite frankly, we are in the Senate. This is what we are supposed to do. It includes things like assisted reproductive technology, fertility treatments. It leaves the door open for future definitions for gene editing and cloning and leaves those at the discretion of the Secretary, whoever the Secretary may be, in the future.

The bill's definition of infertility includes ``the inability to reproduce or safely carry a pregnancy to term.'' It is a very broad term trying to be able to figure out what that means. Obviously, that means everyone who is not a woman as well would be included in that.

The bill also expands the eligibility to ``partners.'' You do not have to be TRICARE beneficiaries. This would be the first time that DOD would be required to provide medical care to someone who is not otherwise entitled to it by virtue of their relationship to the military in other ways. This breaks new ground in that area.

So there is not only issues of questions of definitions and such, but there is also just definition of cost or working through the committee process through committees that have, so far, either not passed it or have refused to even have a markup or a hearing on it.

So I don't think it is good for us to be able to bring this for unanimous consent to be able to move it at this time. Let's move it through in a broader conversation, but I would also encourage, just as a body, I don't find Republicans who are just broadly opposed to IVF.

And I know this is a broad part of the conversation right now to leave that implication after what happened in Alabama, but I am a Republican who is passionate about the value of every single child who also doesn't have an issue with IVF and am grateful to know people who have gone through the process and know their kids and know the value of every single one of those children.

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