Bill to protect IVF treatment, access to contraceptives dies in Tennessee House

A bill that would have made clear that Tennessee’s abortion ban does not endanger fertility treatments or access to contraceptive care was voted down in a House committee on Tuesday.

The bill, by Rep. Harold Love, Jr., D-Nashville, and Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, was introduced in January but gained the support of at least one Republican lawmaker after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that frozen embryos can be considered children — and, therefore, discarding them is a criminal act.

The Alabama court’s ruling has raised concerns about access to IVF for families facing infertility in states that, like Tennessee, have imposed abortion bans and restrictions.

Alabama Republicans this week are expediting legislation to add legal protections for IVF treatment.

Bills to protect IVF treatment are also advancing in Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina. In Arkansas, Republican lawmakers recently blocked a similar effort.

Love said the bill was necessary to provide assurances to Tennessee women and families that accessing birth control or undergoing fertility treatments was not breaking the law.

“If this question is not answered, you are going to have some families who may not be sure about what process they can pursue to start their family,” he said.

“That’s why we pass clarifying language. That’s why we put things in code so everyone knows what can and cannot be done, what is and is not the law. It’s to make sure that those who want to use contraceptives are clear, that’s not abortion, and those who want to pursue IVF are clear that that is also is not abortion.”

But a majority of GOP members on the House Population Health Subcommittee dismissed the need to clarify the state’s abortion ban, which makes it a Class C felony for anyone who performs the procedure.

“Even though we are talking about this being clarifying language, to me there’s actually more confusing language in this, in that the laws we currently have … both IVF and contraception is legal in the state of Tennessee,” said Rep. Brian Terry, a Murfreesboro Republican.

“It is legal here in Tennessee, and there’s not something that anybody is doing to not make that legal in Tennessee,” Terry said.

Terry also questioned whether the bill would allow selective abortion of implanted embryos.

The bill would only apply to frozen embryos not yet implanted in a uterus, according to the bill’s sponsors, including Rep. Ron Travis — the only Republican to sign on to it.

“Our intent is not to allow abortion after that embryo has been brought into the mother and brought alive,” Travis said.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti in 2022 opined that unused embryos do not fall under the state’s abortion ban, but Democrat John Ray Clemmons said the legal opinion does not guarantee protections from prosecution or civil suits in court.

“An attorney general opinion is simply one attorney’s opinion, but codifying language makes it very clear that this access is protected,” said Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat.