House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed his support Thursday for the use and availability of in vitro fertilization to conceive children.
“I believe in the sanctity of every human life. I always have, and — because of that — I support IVF and its availability,” Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said during a news conference on Capitol Hill. “It needs to be something that every American supports, and it needs to be handled in an ethical manner.”
Johnson, who previously issued a paper statement sharing his support for IVF access, was responding to a question from Lisa Desjardins on whether he favors a bill to protect IVF and if he believed discarding embryos for use in IVF procedures was considered murder.
While Johnson did not directly address the part of the question about embryos, he said that, on IVF, “there’s a lot of misunderstanding about it, but it’s something I think we ought to support.”
Yasmeen Alamiri, Julia Griffin, Cecilia Lallmann and Dan Cooney produced and edited this video.
Subscribe:
Newsletters: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/subscribe
PBS NewsHour podcasts: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/podcasts
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG
Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6
Follow us:
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pbsnews
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/newshour
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newshour
Facebook: https://www.pbs.org/newshour