Lawmakers in Mississippi are moving to protect in vitro fertilization, but state Agriculture Commissioner, Baptist preacher and outspoken anti-abortion advocate Andy Gipson is calling it “the greatest assault on the cause of life that we’ve seen in Mississippi in a long time.”
“Most of us in the Legislature are accustomed to over the top and dramatic statements from our agriculture commissioner,” McGee said on social media in response to Gipson. “However, I took this one personally. It’s clear that Commissioner Gipson didn’t read the actual bill … As someone who fashions himself as pro-life, the disdain with which he speaks of ‘assisted reproductive technology’ shows how little he regards the lengths that some families have to go through to even start a family.”
Gipson, also an attorney and former longtime lawmaker, posted a video statement on social media Thursday morning, saying “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s IVF. IVF is already legal in Mississippi, perfectly legal.”
But IVF was “perfectly legal” in Alabama until an Alabama Supreme Court decision called it into question mid-February.
House Bill 1688, authored by Medicaid Chairwoman Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, outlines reimbursement for community health workers. But after a Feb. 16 Alabama Supreme Court decision declaring frozen embryos are children threatened IVF and other procedures there, McGee was successful in adding an amendment to the bill that would protect the right to assisted reproductive technology in Mississippi.
“Because it was after the legislative deadline, we worked up a committee substitute to HB 1688 and brought it before the Medicaid committee,” McGee said.
In Alabama, the IVF came under question when a couple pursued litigation after an unauthorized person got access to a storage room in a fertility clinic and accidentally dropped a dish of frozen embryos on the floor, destroying them. After weeks in limbo as fertility clinics shut their doors and paused treatment, Alabama has since passed legislation to protect the procedure that allows couples facing infertility to create families.
The series of events caused enormous public outcry across the aisle.
“There is nothing more pro-life than trying to conceive a child,” McGee said on social media and again in a recent committee meeting.
Gipson said in his statement the bill was modeled after a federal Democrats’ bill which, he said, created a precedent for “back door abortion and possible cloning and selling of ‘genetic materials of humans.’” But the bill does not mention either.
In the committee meeting where she added the amendment, McGee said the amendment aims to protect families who are trying to have a baby, protects individual rights to their genetic material and protects the provider in performing or assisting in IVF. There is an enforcement section which states that an individual or a provider may sue the state if they have been prevented from receiving or providing the procedure.
“The direction things have been going in the nation, especially with all that’s happening in Alabama has been a big concern to a lot of folks,” McGee said. “… there is really nothing more pro-life than a family trying to conceive a child that’s having difficulty in doing so and we want to protect those rights for our Mississippians who are going through that process.”
The measure passed unanimously with no debate in committee. It is expected to be brought to a full House vote before the March 14 deadline.
UPDATE 3/8/24: This article has been updated to include Medicaid Chairwoman Missy McGee’s response to Andy Gipson’s comments.
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