US Rep. Colin Allred has sought to contrast his record on defending reproductive rights throughout his campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz. (Photos by Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Image & AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Colin Allred blames Ted Cruz’s support for abortion ban for now threatening in vitro fertilization.
In vitro fertilization is again taking center stage in the race for a US Senate seat in Texas after Republicans blocked legislation providing federal protections and insurance coverage for the treatment.
Democrats staged the vote in the US Senate on Tuesday, the second since June, to call attention to Republican opposition to abortion and reproductive rights ahead of the November election. Both of Texas’ US Senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, joined all but two Republicans in voting against allowing the IVF bill to move forward. That left Democrats short of the 60 votes needed to begin debating the legislation.
The vote by Cruz prompted a rebuke from US Rep. Colin Allred, the Dallas Democrat challenging Cruz’s reelection bid.
“I know firsthand the joy parenthood can bring, and IVF is a miracle that offers many Texans the opportunity to experience that joy,” Allred said in a prepared statement. “The only reason IVF access is at risk is because Ted Cruz thinks he should be the one making decisions about if, when and how to start a family — not Texans. I proudly support this bill, and in the Senate, I will always fight to protect IVF.”
Allred has sought to contrast his record on defending reproductive rights throughout his campaign, championing his support for abortion access, federal protections for IVF and expanding access to affordable birth control. He has spoken out against the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Texas’ near-total ban on abortion.
Allred criticized Cruz’s record on healthcare issues during a virtual campaign event Tuesday, highlighting support from current and former Black elected officials across the state.
“We have to ensure that everyone get the health care that they need, expanding access to affordable healthcare, ensuring a woman’s right to choose, which is under extreme attack in the state with horrific consequences,” Allred said during the launch event for the campaign’s Black Texans for Allred coalition.
Cruz has made the contrast with Allred on abortion clear. He’s a long-standing supporter for strict bans on abortion, backing the US Supreme Court decision in 2022 overturning Roe and describing the Texas ban — one of the most extreme in the nation — as “perfectly reasonable.” He’s also supported efforts to ban mifepristone, which is one of two pills used in a medical abortion.
‘Regulate IVF out of existence’
But more than half of Texans say the state’s abortion ban is too extreme. So Cruz has tried to soften his anti-abortion efforts by backing federal legislation that makes states ineligible to receive Medicaid funding if they ban IVF. On Tuesday, Cruz tried — and failed — to push IVF legislation he introduced with US Sen. Katie Britt earlier this year.
“Today, unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are staging an empty show vote, on what they call an IVF bill, in order to stoke baseless fears about IVF and push their broader political agenda,” Cruz said on the Senate floor. “Let’s be clear, there is not a single senator in this chamber, on either side of the aisle, who wants to ban IVF. All 100 senators, to the best of my knowledge, support IVF. Not a single one has called for banning it.”
Democratic critics of Cruz’s legislation said it would still allow states to “regulate IVF out of existence.” Allred has dismissed the bill as political cover for Cruz’s support of abortion bans.
“Ted Cruz’s long-standing support for an extreme ban on abortion which is now threatening IVF is why we are here,” Allred said in May when Cruz proposed the legislation.
IVF procedures in Texas were threatened earlier this year when a Denton divorce case reached the Texas Supreme Court. The nine justices, all Republicans, were asked to consider whether frozen embryos should be treated as people instead of property.
In June, the court declined to take up the case. That left in place a lower court ruling that said the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022 — “did not determine the rights of cryogenically stored embryos outside the human body before uterine implantation.”
