BILLINGS — Billings Clinic is the only hospital in the state that offers in vitro fertilization but if it was up to Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale, there wouldn't be any. He's become one of the most vocal critics of IVF in Congress, even displaying anti-IVF posters outside his Washington D.C. office.
“My heart aches for folks that are having problem conceiving children, it truly does. But to just go immediately to trying to utilize IVF is very destructive to all these children,” said Rosendale over Zoom Saturday.
Last week, Rosendale proposed an amendment to a defense spending bill aimed at blocking any funds from being spent on IVF, but that amendment was made out of order, leaving Rosendale frustrated.
“Because of that, the only way that I'm going to be able to begin to educate the other members of Congress about this information and the general public was to put together these graphics,” Rosendale said.
IVF has been in the crosshairs of lawmakers ever since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that embryos can be considered children.
Few, however, are as vocal as Rosendale. The rest of Montana's Congressional Delegation, including Republican Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Ryan Zinke, say they support IVF.
“So there's 700,000 embryos, new children, separate DNA that are either being destroyed, that are being put into some kind of frozen state, or now we're learning could be having these ghastly experiments performed on them,” said Rosendale.
"We take it as a warning sign of what is to come throughout the country if we are not careful," said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women's Law Center.
Graves is among those sounding the alarm, worried about the wide-reaching implications of any legislation that limits IVF.
"It's going to leave more providers to not want to provide the care people actually want and need. It's going to leave providers to leave the state and the communities that need care all together," Graves said.
“We still have an awful lot of children that would love to be adopted," said Rosendale.
Rosendale said he'll continue to propose amendments against the IVF process, insisting the focus needs to be on the root of the problem, infertility, and speaking with experts on what he said could be solutions.
“They say that there are so many things that have caused infertility in both men and women. And they have a lot of things that they can do to assist them to bring their their fertility levels back up so that many of them are able to conceive children without reverting to the IVF process," Rosendale said.
