Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly detail IVF experience in essay blasting Republicans on reproduction
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Sen. Mark Kelly and former U.S. Rep Gabby Giffords on Nov. 2, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
"The freedom to start a family with IVF is under threat" from Republican policies, former Rep. Gabby Giffords and husband Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) wrote in a People Magazine essay discussing their own experience with fertility issues.
The big picture: The essay from the former congresswoman, who was scheduled to receive fertility treatment two days after she was shot at point-blank range, and her senator husband comes following an Alabama Supreme Court ruling briefly froze access to IVF treatment in the state.
- Senate Republicans blocked a bill earlier this month to ensured federal protections for IVF, which has now become a top campaign issue for Democrats.
- "Our dream of having a child together was taken away by a gunman," Giffords and Kelly wrote. "The dreams of Americans to have a child together could be taken away by politicians."
What they're saying: "These past few months, as we've seen reproductive freedoms increasingly under attack in the absence of the protections of Roe v. Wade, our hearts break for the couples who, all of a sudden, can't decide for themselves how and when to start their family," the couple wrote.
- While IVF is expensive, invasive and can be painful, it's still the safest and sometimes only option for couples struggling to become parents, they continued.
- The couple highlighted their own struggles with having a child together, writing that Giffords was supposed to receive fertility treatments two days after the shooting that left her with a traumatic brain injury.
- "With everything the shooting forced us to leave behind, we weren't ready to let go of our dream of having a child together," the wrote. "But eventually, we had to. That loss was its own agony."
Zoom in: "Make no mistake: The freedom to start a family with IVF is under threat," the couple wrote.
- They highlighted how the Alabama decision "made IVF virtually impossible" in the state for some time and had ripple effects across the country including their home state of Arizona.
Zoom out: Giffords and Kelly highlighted that it's not just the freedom to pursue IVF that's being threatened but the decision of when and how to start a family.
- They said the threat to IVF is not happening by chance but is "the result of years of anti-choice efforts" and the appointment — by former President Trump and others — of judges hostile to reproductive rights, particularly to abortion.
- "Twenty states now have abortion bans, including Arizona, where our state has been in turmoil between two abortion bans, both of which endanger women's health and threaten doctors with jail time," they wrote.
- It doesn't stop there, they added, pointing to the recent Supreme Court decision that preserves access to abortion pills but leaves room for challenges.
Context: On Jan. 8, 2011, a gunman shot Giffords at point-blank range as she greeted constituents at a "Congress on Your Corner" event at a Safeway outside Tucson.
- The gunman killed six people, including federal Judge John Roll, Giffords' aide Gabe Zimmerman and 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green.
- The attacker injured 13 others, including Giffords, who remains partially paralyzed on her right side and struggles to speak because the bullet destroyed the part of her brain that controls language.
Go deeper: Birth control, IVF and SCOTUS: Democrats target GOP vulnerabilities
