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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it was over 10 years ago, and there was a State of the Union Address about to take place. As Members of the Senate were given a ticket for a guest to attend, my staff came to me and said: Who would you like to invite?

I said: Why don't we call out to Walter Reed Hospital and see if there is an Illinois soldier there who is physically up to coming up to Capitol Hill for the occasion?

They said: We will check it out.

They came back to me an hour or two later and said: We found a veteran. She is a member of the Illinois National Guard. She is recuperating at Walter Reed, and she can attend.

I said: Fine. I look forward to meeting her.

The night of the State of the Union Address, they told me that the officer from the Guard was in my office, and we opened the doors, and in came Tammy Duckworth. Tammy was in a wheelchair and full dress uniform, being pushed by her husband Bryan, also a member of the Illinois National Guard.

This was in the month of January, toward the end of the month. With a big smile on her face, she told me the story of how, as a pilot of a helicopter with the Illinois Guard, she was shot down over Iraq in the first week of November--this was January--the first week of November, and she had gone through a series of surgeries. The result of that was she had lost both of her legs. At the time, her right arm was still in a sling, and there was a question about whether or not she would lose that as well. So she was in serious medical condition, but you would never know it. She was just beaming with pride and happiness, and I thought, what a remarkable human being.

She became not only an acquaintance but started to become a friend and has become a very dear friend to me today. I am so honored that we have this good relationship as we do. It is perfect. I am for Tammy. Whatever she is for, I am for Tammy, and I found that is a good standard to live by in Illinois and American politics.

I worked with her through several political campaigns. Her first race for the House of Representatives ended up in defeat--big disappointment--but she never gave up. She never does. She ran again and was elected to the U.S. House, and eventually, filling the vacancy of Barack Obama when he moved to the Presidency, she became my colleague and the Senator from the State of Illinois.

We have a great political friendship, a great governmental friendship, a very great personal friendship.

I remember the day I was driving from Springfield in Central Illinois to Bloomington, IL, for a meeting. The phone rang, and it was Tammy Duckworth calling. I said: What is up Tammy? She said: I have some news that I am sharing with very few people, and I wanted to share with you.

I said: What is that? She said: I am about to become a mother.

I couldn't believe it. I literally couldn't believe it. After what she and that valiant body of hers had been through in the combat for the United States, I couldn't believe that she had that opportunity to start a family. And she did.

The reason, of course, was in vitro fertilization. She had been working on it for a long time with Bryan to have their first child.

They had all but given up when a mutual friend of ours, Judy Gold, in the city of Chicago said: There is one more expert you have got to see. He never fails to create a family.

She went to this man; and, thank goodness, it worked. She became a mother, and it was a remarkable achievement after all she had been through and all her body had been through that she could reach that point.

I can't tell you the pride that was beaming in her face when I first saw her with the baby. She really believed that she had achieved something that many people didn't think was possible.

Fast forward, if you will, to several years later, and she said to me on the floor of this Senate: I need to talk to you about something personal.

We went up to my office and closed the door. She said: I am going to have another baby. I said: I can't believe it. She said: The IVF worked the second time. So she now has two daughters, a beautiful family. She loves them dearly.

I think about that when I think about the debate that is going on now, the national debate, that was manifest in the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court last week when they decided--that court decided, consistent with the Dobbs decision, that IVF will no longer be legal in the State of Alabama.

As a result of that decision, IVF clinics were threatened, and some even closed in the area for fear of criminal prosecution for bringing to this earth children for loving families, just like Tammy's. Well, Tammy Duckworth has spoken out, even this morning, on the issue and what it means to her personally and what it means to all of us who value those individuals who fight so hard to create a family, which is what she did and so successfully.

It was nearly 2 years ago that the Supreme Court's rightwing majority made the disastrous decision to overrule Roe v. Wade, striking down the constitutional protections that afforded women the right to decide when, how, and whether to have children. That is at the heart of this whole debate. It is at the heart of the IVF issue.

Now we live in a world of Dobbs where Republicans have seized the opportunity to restrict the reproductive rights, health, and freedom of families across America.

Since the Dobbs ruling, Republican-led States have imposed abortion bans that threaten women's lives, and Republicans in Congress are attempting to pass a national abortion ban. Now it has gone one step further, as we knew it would.

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court, which is made up entirely of Republican appointees, ruled that frozen embryos are legally children and that their destruction can be treated like the wrongful death of a child. That decision cited Dobbs multiple times. And, I might add, if you read excerpts of the decision, they not only relied on a warped view of the Constitution and other statutes, at one point the chief justice said that what was at issue was the wrath of God. The wrath of God--think of that for a moment. In a civil court in America in the State of Alabama, that was his basis for part of his ruling.

This unprecedented decision has already had serious consequences for reproductive rights in the State of Alabama, as major healthcare providers have halted in vitro fertilization out of fear of prosecution.

For those who desperately want a baby but struggle with infertility, for cancer patients who must safeguard future reproductive options as they undergo treatment, for same-sex couples who use IVF to expand their families, this ruling is devastating.

How can congressional Republicans call themselves pro-life, the pro- family party, when they are actively preventing women from using modern science to start a family? How can they be for life when they are supporting laws that endanger women's lives?

Predictably, Republicans are scrambling away from their earlier thinking. Fearing that this extreme, unpopular measure will hurt their election chances in November, Republicans are simultaneously claiming they support IVF while continuing to support the bills to codify that life begins at conception.

Look at the record. In December 2022, when Senator Duckworth asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill that would have established Federal protection for access to IVF and other fertility treatments, the junior Senator, the Republican Senator for Mississippi, blocked it on behalf of the Republican caucus. That was just 2 years ago.

Because of these extreme Republicans, we now live in a country where women are forced to carry pregnancies, including victims of rape and incest, women carrying nonviable pregnancies, and women whose pregnancies put their own lives at risk. And because of these same extreme Republicans, we live in a country where women who desperately want to become mothers but who need the help of IVF may now be denied that opportunity.

It is unconscionable that Republicans would go this far, but not surprising. Remember that quote from Maya Angelou: When someone shows you who they really are, believe them the first time.

Republicans have told us that they will continue to attack women's rights. Sadly, I believe them. We would be foolish not to take them at their word. Remember when Donald Trump promised to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overrule Roe v. Wade? He did, and they did.

I am committed to working with my Democratic colleagues to safeguard women's reproductive rights, and I do this in honor of my great colleague and friend Tammy Duckworth. She is standing up for women all across America who want the chance to fight for the opportunity to create their own families.

I hope this country comes to its senses. We are going to have a hearing on this issue on March 13 in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is important enough, it is timely enough that we do it and do it effectively.

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