CNN’s Scott Jennings pushed back against Democratic strategist Maria Cardona on Friday after she claimed Republican lawmakers were against in vitro fertilization (IVF) because they voted against a Senate measure on the topic.
In June, the Senate voted on the Right to IVF Act, with all but two Republicans opposing it, as GOP senators had created their own competing legislation on the issue, according to The Associated Press. Appearing on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” the panel debated the GOP’s stance on the issue when Cardona questioned why Republicans voted “against” the measure, prompting Jennings to step in.
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“They didn’t vote against it. Hold on — let me jump in here. The vote in the Senate was a manufactured show vote by the Democrats. So that some person could go on television about this time of the year and make up a talking point about having a vote in the Senate. That‘s all it was,” Jennings said.
“Not a single Republican — from Donald Trump to any candidate for the Senate, House, anywhere at any serious level is running against IVF,” Jennings continued. “Every Republican is running on what Trump has said, which is, ‘We’re the Republican Party, and we support families, and this technology helps people have families.’ Period. Everything else you hear about this from a Democrat is made up, and it is a scare tactic, and I don‘t believe it’s going to work.”
Discussion over IVF intensified in February after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children.” Following the ruling, Alabama’s state House and Senate passed a bill to protect the medical procedure.
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Republican Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama and Ted Cruz of Texas introduced the IVF Protection Act in May. However, when the bill was brought to the Senate floor in June, Democrats blocked it, arguing it could “enact burdensome and unnecessary requirements and create the kind of legal uncertainty and risk that would force clinics to once again close their doors,” according to CNN.
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