IVF protection bill dies in Tennessee House committee

Courtney Joslin, a Resident Fellow at the R Street research organization, said the bill was very simple and encouraged its passage.

“You may hear some say that the law doesn’t need clarification, but I can assure you that it does,” she told the committee. “In theory, any law or regulation that is unclear to citizens is subject to court action. In practice, this appears to be the case here in Tennessee.”

Joslin said after Roe v. Wade fell in the Dobbs decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, neighboring states including Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and South Carolina joined numerous other states around the country in “carving out” contraception clarifications to their own abortion bans, while “Tennessee has yet to do so.”

Joslin added after questions from Rep. Caleb Hemmer (D-Nashville) that multiple state legislatures are in the process of drafting legislation to clarify that IVF is not included in abortion bans nationwide. Love said lawmakers in Alabama were also in the process of drafting clarifying legislation to make sure those residents have IVF protections.

Joslin also preempted concerns that the bill’s language was a “Trojan Horse bill,” saying after looking at it and other similar bills, it “does nothing except clarify that contraception and IVF remain legal and accessible.”

“This would ensure to Tennesseans that they are still able to access IVF treatment as well as contraception, so all contraceptives that are on the market, that are currently legal and accessible here,” she said. “It just clarifies to them that none of anything related to the abortion ban here in the state relates to their contraceptive care or their IVF care.”