Rep. Matt Rosendale wants to roll back IVF coverage for veterans
The Montana Republican congressman says in vitro fertilization leads to the death of ‘millions of unborn children.’
Montana Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale on June 4 tried to roll back an expansion of insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization for unmarried veterans, offering an amendment to an annual Veterans Affairs funding bill that would block federal funding of fertility treatments.
In testimony on the amendment, Rosendale stated that IVF often results in the creation of embryos that are never implanted into a woman’s uterus and equated discarding those unused embryos to abortion.
“We are likely destroying millions of unborn children through this process, a number much larger than Planned Parenthood aborts on any given year,” Rosendale said in testimony before the House Rules Committee.
He suggested that couples suffering from infertility should adopt rather than resort to IVF treatments.
“I have great sympathy for couples who are unable to have children. There are millions of children in need of parents who would love to be adopted,” Rosendale said. “I would rather had the VA spend these funds to make it easier for veterans to adopt children.”
Rosendale’s amendment did not make it to a vote before the full U.S. House of Representatives.
The Montana Republican has long been a vocal opponent of in vitro fertilization.
In March, after the Biden administration extended IVF coverage to unmarried and same-sex couples, Rosendale and three other GOP lawmakers wrote a letter to the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs voicing their opposition to IVF and accusing the VA of “trying to remake the nuclear family.”
“IVF is morally dubious and should not be subsidized by the American taxpayer,” said the letter, signed by Rosendale along with Reps. Mary Miller of Illinois, Bob Good of Virginia, and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma. “It is well known that IVF treatments result in a surplus of embryos after the best ones are tested and selected. These embryos are then frozen — at significant cost to the parents — abandoned, or cruelly discarded.”
In April, Rosendale signed on to a letter with Brecheen and Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia that voiced opposition to “the destruction of precious life in the in vitro fertilization industry.”
“I am proud to join this important letter led by @RepBrecheen, exposing the corrupt IVF industry,” Rosendale wrote in a post on X. “We should be working towards the protection of EVERY human life, not finding more ways to toss away embryos like they are undesirable parts!”
Democratic lawmakers and reproductive rights groups have warned that Rosendale and his fellow opponents of IVF could be successful in eliminating access to the procedure in the United States. Democrats have tried to pass a bill that would protect access to IVF, but it was blocked by Senate Republicans.
“Republicans love to go on TV & talk about how they support IVF. Here’s what they say up in the Rules Committee when they think nobody is watching,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) wrote on X, linking to a video of Rosendale’s testimony.
