A caucus that includes most House Republicans endorses a 15-week national abortion ban and a bill that could eliminate IVF access
A caucus representing most House Republican lawmakers endorsed a national abortion ban on Wednesday.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes nearly 80 percent of all House Republicans, released its 2025 budget proposal on Wednesday, titled “Fiscal Sanity to Save America.” Despite being billed as a budget plan, it is a highly ideological document.
“The gift of life is precious and should be protected,” the document states, adding that the “RSC celebrates the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision,” the case by which the Supreme Court overturned federal protections for abortion rights.
The document goes much further: It endorses a 15-week national abortion ban as well as legislation that could eliminate access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF. In an email to reporters Wednesday night, the Biden White House tied the document to former President Donald Trump, trumpeting news that the “Trump Republican budget would ban abortion nationwide [and] rip away IVF access.”
The RSC budget “applauds” a series of “measures designed to advance the cause of life,” including the “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, which would prohibit abortions after 15 weeks.”
It also applauds the “Life at Conception Act, which would provide 14th amendment protections at all stages of life.” As CNN reported last month, the bill “does not include a carveout for IVF,” and “reproductive rights activists worry the legislation — if ever passed — would have a chilling effect on IVF clinics.”
The RSC’s support for the Life at Conception Act comes in the wake of a controversial Alabama Supreme Court decision finding that embryos created using IVF are people in the eyes of the law and covered under the state’s wrongful death statute.
Last month, The New York Times reported that Trump wants to implement a 16-week national abortion ban if he wins in 2024 — a policy roughly in line with what the majority of House Republicans are pitching now.
