It’s right there in the headline.
Not Ted Cruz
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday led the effort to block a bill by Senate Democrats that they said would protect in-vitro fertilization in America.
But on the Senate floor, Cruz blasted the Democratic bill as a cynical show vote, saying it was less about protecting IVF treatments than creating political fodder for TV commercials ahead of the November election.
“Today, unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are staging an empty show vote,” he said.
Cruz is facing a challenge from Democrat Colin Allred, a Dallas-area congressman who is campaigning heavily on protecting abortion rights. The debate over IVF has grown after Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022 amid concerns that abortion bans could threaten the procedure.
The bill up for debate Tuesday would mandate insurance providers cover IVF treatments, among other things.
Schumer acknowledged in a letter to Democrats days earlier that he was forcing a vote because former President Donald Trump said last month that he wants to make IVF treatments free or force insurance companies to cover the costs. His running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, voted against the Democratic bill to do that earlier this year. Vance was not in the Senate for Tuesday’s vote.
“The American people deserve another chance to see if Senate Republicans will back up their words and vote for access to IVF or vote against it. It’s that simple,” Schumer said in the letter.
[…]
Cruz said he and Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, a Republican, have a more serious bill that would have punished any state that tried to bar IVF treatments. But when Cruz tried to bring that vote up for a vote, Democrats, who control the majority in the Senate, blocked it.
“The Democrats don’t want to protect IVF because if we pass this law, you know what, they can’t run misleading campaign commercials,” Cruz said after Democrats refused to give it a vote on Tuesday.
But U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the Cruz-Britt bill was missing important elements to assure the right to IVF was in fact protected. Specifically, she said the Cruz-Britt bill was silent on whether embryos should be treated the same as living breathing people and whether fertility clinics could dispose of unused embryos.
“It would still allow states to regulate IVF out of existence,” she argued.
Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos used in IVF should be considered children, raising questions about how clinics could handle them and prompting several to pause services.
I get that the Democrats’ bill had things that anti-abortion zealots like Ted Cruz wouldn’t like. Too damn bad. We’re in this position because of the overturning of Roe and the push for fetal personhood by those same anti-abortion zealots. Any bill that doesn’t take that into account is not a bill that would protect IVF. Own it, Ted.
Happy to see a poll today that shows Allred with more support than Cruz among likely voters. Keep it up!
https://pro.morningconsult.com/trackers/2024-election-state-polls
I don’t dare to hope. It’s obvious that Cruz is not serving the interests of Texans, but too many of the voters treat politics like sports fandom. Uvalde voted overwhelmingly for Greg Abbott despite his refusal to do anything to deal with our gun violence problem. I’ll wager with anyone that Springfield OH will overwhelmingly vote for Trump/Vance, despite their brazen and shameless and racist lies about Haitian refugees (here legally) causing fear and chaos in their town. It’s a bet I’d love to lose.
This local story is facepalm inducing:
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2024/09/17/500027/houston-area-haitians-say-trumps-comments-about-eating-pets-are-leaving-those-who-supported-him-embarrassed/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
Embarrassment will be the least of your worries. People who have decided to other you will not give a damn about whether you share the same “conservative values”.