How IVF is complicating Republicans' abortion messaging

In-vitro fertilization has become the latest front in the political battle over reproductive rights, and it's left some Republicans grappling with how to square their support for IVF with their past stances on reproductive rights.

In the weeks since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos are children under the law, threatening access to IVF in the state, Congressional Republicans have lined up to voice their support for the procedure.

Republicans have tried to send a clear and unified message. The Senate GOP campaign arm advised those running for office to "clearly state [their] support for IVF" and "publicly oppose any efforts to restrict access" to the treatment in a memo to candidates obtained by NPR. In her Republican response to President Biden's State of the Union, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt said "we strongly support continued nationwide access to in-vitro fertilization."

But many GOP lawmakers have spent years arguing that life begins at conception – the same basic premise that upheld the Alabama decision, which threw fertility clinics and patients in the state into limbo.

Since the Alabama ruling, Republicans have struggled to articulate what distinguishes their views from the court's.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, a practicing obstetrician, said he welcomes "every day 200 babies that are born because of in-vitro fertilization in this country.

"There's nothing more pro-family than supporting the birth of babies."

He's also one of the senators who co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, a bill that would have granted constitutional protection to embryos at "the moment of fertilization," without any carve outs for IVF. If enacted, that legislation could have threatened access to IVF, during which embryos are