Matt Rosendale takes up anti-IVF campaign in latest break from GOP colleagues

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) has become the loudest voice in Congress against in vitro fertilization (IVF), threatening to complicate the GOP message on the deeply personal procedure at a time when reproductive issues pose a challenge for the party.

As most Republicans have rushed to express their support for IVF or said that policies on the matter should be left to the state level, Rosendale has called IVF “morally wrong,” proposed anti-IVF amendments and hung anti-IVF posters outside his office.

The outgoing congressman, who has long frustrated fellow Republicans with his stances and brash style, says his goal with the shock campaign is to steer the conversation his way and challenge his colleagues who bill themselves as pro-life.

“It gets back to the very basic question: Do you believe that life begins at conception, or not?” Rosendale said in an interview with The Hill.

Rosendale’s interest in IVF policy was heightened by Alabama Supreme Court’s February ruling in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by IVF patients whose frozen embryos were dropped and destroyed. The court found that frozen embryos are considered children — creating a broader threat to the practice of IVF, which routinely results in embryos that are indefinitely frozen, donated, or discarded.

State GOP lawmakers in Alabama quickly approved a new law to protect IVF doctors and clinics in the wake of the ruling, and Republicans in Washington rushed to show their support for IVF — including many who have sponsored legislation to declare that life begins at conception, seeing the procedure as pro-family. Every Senate Republican signed a pledge saying they “strongly support” continued nationwide access to IVF, even as they blocked a Democratic bill to codify access to it.

Rosendale had the opposite reaction.

“When that came out, I was like, ‘OK, this is going to be a big question that we’re going to have to address,’” Rosendale said. And while he says he recognizes the “compassionate side” of trying to help those with infertility, “the more I looked into it, the bigger problem I saw.”

Beyond the posters outside his office and amendments, such as one — which did not receive a vote — to prevent any defense funds from being used on IVF, Rosendale has other ideas about federal policy in the IVF space.

“At the very least, we have to have the CDC start collecting information and tell us what the heck’s going on, number one,” Rosendale said. “Number two, no taxpayer dollars should be utilized to support a system that kills children.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does collect data about IVF success rates, under the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992. Its most recent report found 97,128 infants were born in 2021 after being conceived through assisted reproductive technologies (mainly IVF), up from 65,151 in 2012.

But the core concern for Rosendale is that the data does not include figures on how many embryos are donated, kept in storage or discarded. An IVF cycle can result in more embryos than a patient wants to transfer.

“There’s like 700,000 children that are either being destroyed, or frozen for some period until somebody stops paying rent. Or worse yet, being experimented on,” Rosendale said.

Estimates about the number of embryos frozen in storage vary widely. On the higher end, the National Embryo Donation Center says there is a “surplus” of roughly 1.5 million embryos in the United States. Rosendale’s 700,000 figure takes the number of egg retrievals and embryo transfers reported by the CDC and estimates of fertilization. One of the posters outside Rosendale’s office claiming there are 700,000 “frozen, destroyed, experimented” embryos annually cites the conservative Witherspoon Institute think tank and a Catholic News Agency article.

Guidelines from the National Institutes of Health dictate that federal funds may only be used on stem cell research using embryos that were created for reproductive purposes but not needed and then donated for research. And it also prohibits creating embryos solely for research purposes. State laws governing privately-funded research on embryos vary.

“You’ve got 500 fertility clinics that are doing all this with very, very little oversight,” Rosendale asserted.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine says fertility treatments such as IVF are “one of most highly regulated of all medical practices in the United States.” But like a lot of health care, it is governed by a patchwork of state and federal rules. 

Louisiana IVF clinics work around a law that prohibits destruction of embryos. IVF critics, such as the Heritage Foundation, point to tougher restrictions on handling of embryos in other countries. Germany, for instance, requires that clinics only create as many embryos as are intended to transfer.

In perhaps his most strict suggestion, Rosendale brought up the idea of attempting to fertilize one egg at a time.

“They can extract a singular egg and implant that egg, OK, so that you don’t have this abundance of all these other children that are being created and then destroyed,” Rosendale said. “You can do that. It’s not as cost-effective, but you can do that.”

Dr. Sigal Klipstein, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist in Illinois, told The Hill that while it is theoretically possible to fertilize one egg at a time, that would be not only prohibitively expensive — an IVF cycle can cost tens of thousands of dollars — but impractical. It could take perhaps 10 attempts, for example, for a patient to have a reasonable chance at pregnancy.

Klipstein said she sometimes has patients ask about retrieving and attempting to fertilize one egg at a time.

“Once they realize sort of what is involved, both in terms of time and effort and cost, almost universally they ask not to do it, because it just doesn’t make scientific sense and it doesn’t help them get pregnant,” Klipstein said. “In theory, it could be done, but it’s unlikely to work, and it’s likely to be very expensive.”

Beyond the prohibitive cost, going through multiple egg extractions to take a single egg that may or may not fertilize — let alone transferred and result in a successful pregnancy — would take a physical toll, as well as an emotional one.

Asked about that emotional toll, Rosendale directed the attention back on the question of personhood.

“Here’s what’s emotionally taxing, OK: You’re born, and you’re a product of IVF. And your parents had to decide which one of your siblings they were going to kill,” Rosendale said.

Finally, Rosendale suggested doing more research on what is causing infertility, in order to encourage natural conception.

“Let’s address the fact that we have young girls,” Rosendale said, whose family member “takes them at the age of 13 and starts getting them on the pill just so that they can control her menstrual cycle. OK? And then now all of a sudden she’s done this for 15, 20, 30 years before – before she starts having children, and it creates major problems, OK, with her system.” 

“Let’s look at the diets and what people are eating, and how’s that affecting the infertility of the men? And find out, what is the actual problem, and see if we can put them in a position where they can conceive naturally,” Rosendale said.

The Montana congressman has drawn public rebukes from GOP colleagues in wake of his anti-IVF posters and amendments.

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), who has “personal experience” with IVF, said he would “suggest to [Rosendale] and anyone else that we ought to respect that women are making a very difficult decision when they choose IVF to bring life into the world.”

Some members dismiss Rosendale as a troublemaker — he was one of eight House Republicans to vote to remove former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last year — and note he is on the way out the door. Rosendale is not running for reelection and abandoned a Senate bid after former President Trump endorsed Tim Sheehy in the GOP Senate primary.

But even so, Rosendale’s anti-IVF campaign threatens to make messaging on reproductive issues more difficult for Republicans, even as leaders such as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) say decisions about it should remain on the state level. House Democrats’ campaign is already pointing to Rosendale’s stances as a warning, saying Rosendale is not alone with his IVF stance.

The Montana congressman said some of his GOP colleagues have been privately receptive to his concerns about IVF. And he is not interested in moderating his message for the sake of electoral outcomes.

“Have you ever watched some of the things that I do? I don’t worry about the politics that much,” Rosendale said.

And his stance highlights the tricky moral and policy issues that Republicans will continue to face as they grapple with reproductive issues amid pressure from social conservatives.

“If I can’t get a piece of legislation passed … then what you want to do is start making sure that you put good information out there, so that the next time, someone else might have the opportunity to advance that piece of legislation,” Rosendale said.