Citation From the September 12, 2024, edition of Family Research Council’s Washington Watch
TONY PERKINS (HOST): In Tuesday night's presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris gave a rambling and incoherent statement that seemed to imply the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade had forced women to travel out of state for in vitro fertilization treatments.
…
PERKINS: It remains unclear what the vice president meant by that political word salad. I mean, IVF is legal in all 50 states, and I'm not sure where the plane and the strangers came in.
Well, joining me now to discuss this is Dr. Marguerite Duane. She is a board-certified family physician and the executive director of FACTS, the Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to Teach — Collaboration to Teach the Science, an organization dedicated to educating health care professionals and students about the scientifically valid natural-based family planning methods. Dr. Duane, welcome to Washington Watch.
MARGUERITE DUANE: Thank you so much for having me.
PERKINS: Now let me ask you, are you aware of any place in the country where IVF is not allowed?
DUANE: No. I'm not aware that IVF is not available throughout the country. My understanding, again, I'm not a lawyer. I'm a physician. But to my knowledge, IVF is legal. But where women do need to travel extensively is to seek physicians who are trained to provide comprehensive reproductive health care through a restorative lens, one that's really designed to treat the underlying causes of infertility.
And in fact, I've had patients drive four to six hours to see me to receive the kind of care that I'm trained to provide, and we currently train physicians across the country to provide. Again, care that is real women's health care that seeks to identify underlying causes of infertility and treat those through a restorative reproductive approach.
PERKINS: And is also respectful of human life.
…
PERKINS: You mentioned the miscarriages and the vice president, her comments there suggesting that pro-life laws in various states are prohibiting doctors for treating women who show up at a hospital because of a miscarriage. Again, I'm not aware of that.
DUANE: And it's simply not true. And I can tell you, as a physician who cares for patients who regularly experience miscarriage, we are trained to provide both medical and surgical treatments to treat miscarriage. Now the difference between a miscarriage and an abortion is with miscarriage, the embryo has already passed. The heart has stopped beating. The child is no longer alive.