Recently, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, Senator Dallas Harris, and Senator Rochelle Nguyen announced new legislation for the 2025 legislative session to protect and expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assistive reproductive technologies. While Nevada Democrats stand unified to prioritize women’s health care freedoms, every single Republican legislator voted against enshrining the right to infertility care into Nevada’s Constitution during the 2023 Legislative Session. IVF is a critical tool – and sometimes a person’s only way – to start and build a family.
Read more about the importance of the bill draft request that will protect IVF in Nevada below:
The Nevada Independent: OPINION: Legislation protecting infertility care and making it accessible is vital
Amanda Klein
Key Points:
- One in 6 couples struggle with the disease of infertility. The World Health Organization has recognized infertility as a disease for years, just like cancer, diabetes or heart disease. And yet, there is a stigma that remains. The result: We don’t talk about our infertility journeys. It’s too raw, too personal and too painful.
- But we need to speak up. We need employers to understand how hard it is to go back to work the day after a miscarriage. We need our families and friends to be aware of what we are going through and to be sensitive to our plight. And, most importantly, we need lawmakers to understand how big of an issue this truly is and act on our behalf.
- I support with all my heart Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro’s (D-Las Vegas) proposed IVF protection bill. Fertility treatment needs to be affordable. It needs to be recognized by insurance companies as a covered benefit. And employers need to offer fertility benefits to care for their workforce. In Nevada, that’s not the case.
- First and foremost, IVF must be protected and not politicized or vilified. Doctors should be able to care for their patients without fear of retribution. Intended parents should be able to grow their family in the way that they see fit. And not go bankrupt or have to dip into their 401(k) prematurely to have a kid.
- Contrary to popular belief, infertility is not just a women’s issue. It affects men just as much. There is female factor infertility, male factor infertility and many situations where both male and female factors are at play. We spend our entire adult lives trying not to get pregnant, that when we are finally ready to start a family and find out you cannot, it is unfathomable and hard to grasp. If you cannot conceive naturally or are having a hard time getting pregnant, it is not your fault. There is nothing wrong with you, you are not damaged and you are not broken. Trust me, this is the narrative in every person’s head when you go through this journey.
- I have a birth defect. I was born with what is known as a bicornuate uterus where essentially one side of my uterus is deflated. While millions of women go on to have healthy pregnancies with a bicornuate uterus, mine is severe. When my doctor told me that we would have to hire a surrogate and undergo IVF, it felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. While the cost was insurmountable, at least I felt like after years of miscarriages and no answers, I finally had a diagnosis and a plan. This gave me hope. But after an Alabama Supreme Court decision that came out earlier this year attempting to take away the right to IVF, it’s clear to me that taking away the right to IVF steals that hope for so many others.
- In 2020, I founded Nevada Fertility Advocates (NFA). NFA supports the 1 in 6 couples in Nevada who struggle with the disease of infertility. We do this through community awareness, employer education and advocacy. I am honored to work with Sen. Cannizzaro as she fights for women and families and ask that all members of the Legislature join us in this fight. This is not a liberal issue. This is not a conservative issue. This is a matter of fighting for families and access to high quality, affordable health care.
KUNR: Nevada Senate Majority Leader proposes IVF protections for 2025 legislative session
Lucia Starbuck
Key points:
- Cannizzaro said the proposed legislation will do several things. It will protect patients and providers of assisted reproductive technologies like IVF under state law, and make treatment more affordable by expanding insurance coverage. The price tag can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
- “As a mother of two myself, and soon to be in the next few days three wonderful little boys, I want to ensure all Nevadans in their reproductive years have the ability to start or grow their families regardless of income, gender identity, ethnicity, or sexual orientation,” Cannizzaro said.
- According to the CDC, nearly 700 babies were born in Nevada with this type of assistance in 2021.
- “I want to state very unequivocally and very clearly, this issue of infertility and access to those services should not be a politicized issue that places families at risk,” she said.
- Earlier this summer, U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have established a federal right to IVF and other fertility treatments.
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