Snap Fact #289 - Obama Administration Pushes for Infertility Treatments; Romney/Ryan’s Plan Could Send Romney's Sons to Jail!

While President Obama fights for infertility treatments as an essential and available health benefit, the Romney/Ryan's far right personhood policies would criminalize In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF). In a cruel ironic twist, several of Romney's own grandkids were produced by this fertilization method. Would the Republican position cause Romney’s own family to be on the wrong side of this wrong law?

Did you realize that ". . . An estimated 60,000 babies are born in the US each year as a result of IVF treatment and up to 15 per cent of couples are believed to struggle with infertility issues. . ." President Obama has espoused policies that protect women's health and permit families to make their own decisions regarding family planning, which would include In-Vitro Fertilization for infertile couples.

On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama vowed to protect a woman's right to choose. Just last week, in answering questions about Senate candidate Todd Akin's inappropriate comments on rape, President Obama said, "What I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians – the majority of whom are men – making decisions about women’s health. . .I think the underlying notion that we should be making decisions on behalf of women for their health care decisions -- or qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape -- I think those are broader issues, and that is a significant difference in approach between me and the other party. . . ."

Thanks to ObamaCare, women are entitled to free preventative screenings, and have access to contraceptives at no charge. ". . . The Department of Health and Human Services is currently drafting what's known as the Essential Health Benefits Plan, a collection of conditions and other medical care that many insurance companies will be required to cover. There's currently a push to have infertility treatments included as an essential benefit. . ." Such coverage would bring immense relief to infertile couples with fertility issues facing the huge expense of In-Vitro Fertilization. In addition, a bill sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, is now being considered in the Senate would expand Veterans benefits by covering IVF for Veterans who were wounded in combat and have fertility issues

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and VP candidate Paul Ryan have repeatedly espoused their firmly held opinions that "Life begins at Conception." Ryan has sponsored "The Sanctity of Human Life" bill in the House of Representatives. This Bill would equate a newly fertilized embryo with being a "person." If a "Personhood" bills were to become law, In-Vitro Fertilization would be criminalized because unused embryos that don't make it to the womb, are either frozen for later use, or in the case of unhealthy embryos, are destroyed and routinely discarded by fertility clinics. ". . .The Sanctity of Human Life Act, if passed, would make all those embryos "people" in the legal sense, so if they aren't used or don't become babies after being implanted, they would essentially become murder victims under the law. . . ."

What is oxymoronic, is that while Romney believes in the sanctity of life, he would prevent infertile couples from having children, but at the same time he was thrilled that 3 of his sons used IVF to conceive a child. This past May twin boys David Mitt and William Ryder were born to Tagg Romney and his wife Jen via IVF and a gestational surrogate. This is the second time that Romney's son Tagg and his wife Jen used IVF: Their son Jonathan was born this way in 2010

“Not only have they used expensive In-Vitro Fertilization techniques that most couples could not afford, they even employed a fairly compensated surrogate mother (fees can run as high as $60,000), even though the practice is ‘strongly discouraged’ by their own church and occasionally triggers disciplinary actions. . . In September, right after Mitt Romney probably would have found out that his son was expecting children, he briefly seemed to slip up at a town-hall-style meeting in Goffstown, N.H., when talking about how his grandchildren had made him especially invested in the future of the country.

“I’ve got 16 grandkids, 17, something like that — 16,” Mitt Romney said, to laughter. “I’m counting ones that aren’t hatched yet.”

This is a classic case of pandering to the Religious Right and "Flip-Flop" on the part of Romney: "Do as I say, not as I Do." A Romney who would force an extreme policy decision upon Americans denying infertile couples children, while doing the exact opposite with his own progeny. Romney's sons can spare no expense and have kids via IVF, but for the rest of America, IVF is murder.