As Maine Republicans oppose legislation that would protect reproductive care providers from hostile attacks, GOP lawmakers in Alabama pass bill to shield IVF providers, patients from criminal, civil liability
For Immediate Release: March 7, 2024
Actions come as two polls released this week show Americans across party lines think reproductive care should be easier to access and want politicians out of private medical decisions
(Portland, MAINE) – One day after Republican lawmakers in the Maine legislature opposed a bill that would protect Maine providers of reproductive health care—including in vitro fertilization (IVF)—and care for transgender people, Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey signed into law legislation that provides criminal and civil immunity for providers and patients who offer and access IVF treatments.
The fast-tracked law shows Republican lawmakers in Alabama are desperately trying to regroup following a deeply unpopular state supreme court ruling last month that declared embryos the legal equivalent of children, and that they are aware their party’s anti-science, anti-abortion platform sharply conflicts with standard of care medicine and public opinion.
The new Alabama law does not address the underlying issue of the state’s constitution declaring it state policy to “recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children,” nor does it adequately address the ongoing threat of the state supreme court’s ruling to the future of IVF and related care nationwide.
The February ruling led clinics in Alabama to pause IVF services, devastating families who hoped to conceive through the technology and sparking concern across the country over the fate of fertility treatments and related reproductive health care. Republicans at state and federal levels have scrambled to assuage growing public outrage that the party’s decades-long crusade to ban abortion has resulted in continuing loss of access to essential health care.
Two polls released this week by Navigator Research and KFF respectively show a majority of Americans across party lines believe reproductive health care including birth control and IVF should be easier to access and that private medical decisions about abortion should be made by doctors and patients, not politicians.
In Maine on Tuesday, Republican politicians opposed legislation that would protect the state’s reproductive and gender-affirming care providers from hostile litigation from states (like Alabama) that have banned safe, essential medical care that is legal in Maine. GOP lawmakers voiced their opposition first at a press conference and then at a public hearing for LD 227, the bill that proposes protecting providers who offer care including full spectrum pregnancy care.
On Wednesday, every Republican lawmaker on the state legislature’s Health Care Insurance and Financial Services (HCIFS) committee voted against LD 2203, a bill that would expand access to over-the-counter contraception in Maine.
In February, every GOP member of the Maine legislature's Judiciary committee voted against LD 780, a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would explicitly enshrine the right to reproductive autonomy in the state.
Despite political fallout in Alabama, Republican lawmakers across the country continue to push for bans on abortion, bans on contraception, and bans on health care for transgender people as well as and to establish “fetal personhood” laws that imperil fertility treatments, seek to criminalize providers, and have long been a goal of anti-abortion extremists.
On the federal level, last week Republicans in Congress blocked a bill that would have protected IVF, and former president Donald Trump’s allies continue to strategize how to ban abortion nationwide.
Statement from Lisa Margulies, Esq., Vice President of Public Affairs, Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund
“It is unfortunate that certain politicians in our state continue to oppose protecting and expanding access to essential, legal medical care for Mainers while mounting evidence shows the devastating consequences of bans.
The people of Maine deserve to know their rights aren’t in danger election to election, and the people of Maine deserve public servants who put their responsibility to their constituents ahead of personal beliefs.
We all should have the freedom to fully control our bodies, lives, and futures. Our lawmakers must show Mainers that they value our reproductive liberties by passing LD 227, LD 2203 and LD 780.”
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Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit membership organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in Maine. PPNNE has four health centers in Maine and sees more than 12,000 patients a year.