The Alabama Supreme Court ruling in February recognizing human embryos as people triggered widespread panic that in vitro fertilization (IVF) would be banned. Republicans have since tried to protect IVF, including a new federal bill introduced by Senators Ted Cruz (Texas) and Katie Britt (Ala.). But does the legislation do more harm than good? And how should Christians respond to an industry that experts warn is severely unregulated and preys on parents? Family Research Council Director for the Center of Human Dignity Mary Szoch joined “Washington Watch” to discuss.

FORMER CONGRESSMAN JODY HICE: The Alabama Supreme Court decision recognizing the dignity of human embryos set off a firestorm earlier this year. Some of you, I’m sure, will remember that. But leaders from both parties started promoting their support for in vitro fertilization. Well, Tuesday, Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Katie Britt announced that they are introducing legislation that they say will federally protect legal access to IVF.

[Clip of Senator Cruz]: It’s a very simple bill that says if a state receives Medicaid funding, that they cannot bar IVF … that it is a federal right, that you are entitled to have access to this technology and a state cannot bar it.

HICE: That was Senator Cruz [Tuesday] on Megyn Kelly’s program together there with Senator Britt. Look, I have no doubt that the senators were well intentioned in this bill, but was it a rushed move on a very complicated issue? And how should Christians consider the entire IVF industry? Well, joining me now to discuss this is Mary Szoch. She’s the director of the center for Human Dignity here at the Family Research Council. Mary, welcome back. … Let’s begin just [by] explaining what would this legislation do if it’s passed, What would be the result?

MARY SZOCH: Well, as Senator Cruz said, this legislation ties Medicaid funding to a state’s laws regarding IVF and says that if a state prohibits IVF, they won’t receive Medicaid funding.

HICE: So that sounds like a big deal. I mean, to tie this whole thing to Medicaid funding in itself sounds pretty strong on the one hand, but it seems to me that there are a lot of other issues to consider in all of this. … In fact, I believe we had you on when the Alabama Supreme Court decision came out that, in essence, recognized human embryos as human beings. And that created hysteria. … Is this a response to the Alabama decision?

SZOCH: This absolutely is a response to that decision. And it is a huge deal. The Medicaid funding that the state receives is significant, and states are not going to opt out of receiving Medicaid funding. And we know that Democrats could take this same concept and turn it on its head and say, ‘You know what? We’re going to tie state Medicaid funding to whether or not a state protects unborn children in the womb. If a state does not allow a woman to have an abortion, well, we’re going to take away their Medicaid funding.’ And all of this is in response to that Alabama Supreme Court decision that said embryos must be treated as persons. That Supreme Court decision did not … attack IVF. What it did was it said that the IVF industry has to treat the embryo as a human being — which, scientifically, it is. And so, to assign a different set of values to an embryo simply because it’s not conceived within a woman’s body [is] morally, logically and scientifically inconsistent.

HICE: Yeah, there’s so many issues with this. … Let me start with this. Any idea at all why they chose to tie Medicaid to this bill?

SZOCH: Well, I think it is to make this a federal right. This is something that, as I mentioned, states are not going to opt out of. And so this is really a huge stick that they’re using to force states into not prohibiting IVF in any way. Now, a key point here is that no states are currently trying to prohibit IVF. But what this bill does not do is it doesn’t say what a quote-unquote ‘prohibition on IVF’ would be. Does that include saying that a state doesn’t actually want to endorse intentional fatherlessness? IVF can only happen between married heterosexual couples. Does that mean that a state decides: we don’t actually want to endorse human trafficking, and we know that that’s linked to surrogacy, so we’re not going to say that paid surrogacy is prohibited within our state? Does that mean that that a state can’t say an embryo has human DNA … and so those embryos must be treated with dignity and respect? And that means they can’t be frozen. They can’t be destroyed. Are those, in fact, what would be considered prohibitions under this bill? We know that the Democrats would think so.

HICE: Yeah. So, I mean, that’s really what brought about the entire Alabama Supreme Court decision was some of the embryos were destroyed, and Alabama came back and said, ‘Well, those were human beings’ — which is good. I mean, we recognize that life, human life, begins at conception, but we have millions of these embryos already frozen. …There’s a lot. What is ever going to happen to those embryos? … [T]his whole industry is like the wild, Wild West in many ways. It is so unregulated. We don’t really know what’s happening to these embryos and what kind of protections there are. And if I’m correct, none of those issues like you just suggested are dealt with in this legislation. Is that correct?

SZOCH: That is correct. … What this legislation does is it protects the IVF industry. And that’s what the Alabama Supreme Court tried to do was to say, ‘Hey we’re going to focus on the parents and on the children who are conceived through the IVF industry.’ The backlash was created by the IVF industry itself. This is not a bill that protects parents. It doesn’t say … if an IVF doctor uses his own sperm to fertilize an egg, he can be penalized. It doesn’t say, if an IVF clinic doesn’t store embryos in a safe, secure place — if they don’t put as many protections on them as CVS uses on their razorblades, well, they can actually be penalized for that because those are human beings. And parents have invested so much into those children’s lives. It doesn’t do any of that. It just protects the IVF industry. And that’s where we need to make a change. We need to say IVF needs to be regulated in the United States. It can’t operate as it does where anything goes.

HICE: Excellent point. Well, earlier today, there were some Senate Democrats that held a press conference on the catastrophic effect … of pro-life laws. And Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) was asked specifically about this Cruz-Britt bill, and I wanted to play her response here and get a little reaction from you.

[Clip of Senator Murray]: If Republicans really wanted to make sure that IVF was available, they would support our effort to make sure that IVF is in every state. I am confident that our legislation will do that. We are not going to accept any legislation that puts in law personhood.

HICE: Okay. Now, she was speaking specifically of the Duckworth bill. So can you tell us a little bit about what their bill would do?

SZOCH: But the Duckworth bill would allow the Wild West of reproductive rights to become even more wild. You know, we’re talking about legalizing chimeras, legalizing cloning — things that Americans believe is unconscionable. What they’re really trying to get at here, though, is that infertility is an incredibly painful cross, and it is such a struggle for couples who are carrying it. And it’s one that I [understand], as the mother of two — with two in heaven. I can’t imagine what that cross would be like to carry, but I know that the solution is not a completely unregulated industry that exploits the good desires of parents to become mothers and fathers. There are actually solutions that are more effective. IVF not actually highly successful. It doesn’t treat the underlying cause of infertility…

HICE: Okay. So let’s step into the next pathway of this whole argument. As Christians, how should we think about IVF with consistent biblical and reasonable logic? What is a Christian response to this entire industry?

SZOCH: I think the first thing that we need to do is acknowledge that couples who are struggling with infertility are on an incredibly difficult journey, and we need to support them, and we need to help them carry that cross. And whether that means just asking someone, ‘Hey, do you want to talk about this?’ or being extra supportive around difficult times for people. Those are steps that we, as Christians, need to take. Secondly, we need to recognize that the desire to have children is a godly desire — and that is good — but we cannot allow that desire to become out of order where from where it should be. We can’t allow that desire to completely dominate and separate us from doing things that we know are aligned with God’s will. And that begins with respecting the dignity of every human person: the mother, the father, and any future children who may be conceived. And so, with that comes recognizing that the IVF industry preys upon women. There are all sorts of medical challenges that that women face as the result of IVF, whether it’s an increased risk, risk of ectopic pregnancy or of pre-eclampsia or of multiple births, which brings with it a more challenging pregnancy. But those physical challenges brought on by IVF don’t even speak to the emotional and mental toll that the process takes — and that that is a burden that’s carried by both the mother and the father. Pornography is [also] an integral part of the IVF process.

And the husband’s use of pornography is typically how sperm is obtained. That’s not good for a marriage. We know that pornography goes against what God tells us about the dignity of men and women and the marital act. And then we know that embryos, while some of them do result in a baby that is one day held by the mother and father, we know that an embryo is a human being — from the moment that embryo is conceived and the moment that egg is fertilized. And so, that embryo must be treated with dignity and respect. Only 7% of all embryos ever created result in a baby that is held in a mother’s arms, and so that means 93% are either destroyed, discarded, frozen, experimented on, or placed in a in a freezer for future use. And that is something that we really have to reckon with.

And then, in addition to that, we know that IVF has been used to enable gay parenting, which we know is not good for children. We know that it has been used with surrogacy, which we know can be linked to human trafficking, and again separates a child from his mother. So I think as Christians, we are tasked with looking at the complete picture. And yes, infertility is a huge cross, and we need to help couples with that. And we can point them towards options like restorative reproductive medicine that actually can address infertility — and that actually has significantly higher success rates than IVF does.

HICE: Well, those were incredible points there, all of which need [to be understood]. I think a lot of our challenge in all of this is educating people about the IVF industry and really what is involved, both from the parents perspective as well as the embryos themselves. … It’s an extremely complicated issue.