TN Rep votes against bill to protect IVF, contraception because he got an email he didn't like
The Tennessee legislature passed a bill to codify a right to IVF and contraceptives despite Republican shenanigans.
On Thursday, April 10, 2025, the Tennessee House passed a bill intended to ensure a right to contraception and fertility treatments (including IVF). While the bill, the "Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act," isn't perfect, it's a big step forward for Tennesseans. Just last year, the legislature voted down a similar bill protecting access to contraception and IVF.
The bill was sponsored by two women lawmakers: Republican state Senator Becky Duncan-Massey (R-Knoxville) and Republican state Representative Iris Rudder (R-Winchester).
The Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act unanimously passed the state Senate last month and, on Thursday, the House held its third and final reading. The bill passed the state House in a bipartisan 54-37 vote. All 37 legislators who voted against the bill are Republicans.
Before it passed, the *Republican bill ran into some *Republican shenanigans. Here are few of those moments.
Rep. Timothy Hill's no good, very bad email
The most bizarre objection to the bill came from state Representative Timothy Hill (R-Blountville), who urged his fellow Republicans to vote against the bill simply because the American Civil Liberties Union supported it. “Members in this body need to understand… you are voting with the ACLU if you vote in favor of this legislation,” Hill said.
According to Hill, he was mysteriously added to the ACLU's mailing list, received an ACLU email that voiced support for the Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act, and came to the conclusion that tribalism was far more important than the rights of Tennesseans.
“Look at who supports this bill. Look at who's against it. If you can stand with them, do what you gotta do. I'm voting no,” Hill told his colleagues.
Rep. Hill - who, evidently, bases his life choices on whatever is contrary to people and groups he doesn't like - then suggested that the legislature work over the summer to create and pass a new bill, one so terrible that the ACLU would never support it.
“Let’s work on it over the summer… Let’s get something the ACLU has a problem with,” he said.
VIDEO: State Rep. Timothy Hill urged members of the state House to vote against a bill protecting access to contraception and fertility treatments, because the ACLU supports the bill. (April 10, 2025)
Bill sponsor, Republican state Rep. Iris Rudder, quickly brushed off Rep. Hill’s tribalism as a mere tactic to sink the legislation.
“I stand with women in this state, and with families in this state… It is important to families to have access to IVF and to contraceptives… I stand here as a woman that believes that this is important… I'm just asking you to codify into law that women will continue to have access to IVF and contraceptives. That's what this bill is about,” she added.
VIDEO: State Rep. Iris Rudder responded to Rep. Timothy Hill's tribalist opposition to a bill protecting access to IVF and contraceptive.
Rep. Hill was perturbed. Raising the volume of his voice and the rapidity of his words, Rep. Hill contended that his tribalist reason for voting against the bill was valid. Clearly piqued, he then angrily accused Rep. Rudder of suggesting that anti-choicers don't stand with women.
“The dichotomy to say that we are not in support of women is a misnomer. The bottom line is that being pro-life is being pro-woman. The bottom line is that we stand in support of women and we do not need this legislation,” Hill argued.
VIDEO: State Rep. Timothy Hill angrily insisted that he stood with women while voting against a bill to codify protections for contraception and IVF.
Republicans playing games
One thing I leaned during my time in the anti-choice movement is that when anti-choice lawmakers insist that a piece of legislation is “unnecessary,” then that legislation absolutely is necessary. Whatever it is that the legislation would protect, anti-choice lawmakers want that restricted. Several House Republicans on Thursday played this familiar game.
Rep. Chris Todd (R-Madison County) insisted that the Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act “is absolutely unnecessary” because “fertility clinics in Tennessee are not facing legal challenges to their operations” at this present time. This is well tactic of anti-choicers. They focus on and speak of the current state of things as if nothing will change in the future.
Obfuscating the very real need to protect contraception and fertility treatments, Rep. Todd claimed, “This bill is a solution in search of a problem - with serious negative consequences.”
VIDEO: State Rep. Chris Todd argued that protecting IVF and contraception is “absolutely unnecessary.”
And then there is Rep. Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet), whose cheerful condescension, paternalism, and insincerity are nearly too irritating to endure. She too insisted the Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act is “unnecessary.”
Back in October 2022, two months after Tennessee’s trigger ban went into effect, Rep. Lynn and other state lawmakers joined a virtual meeting with several anti-abortion groups. During that meeting, Lynn asked about how to respond to voters’ questions about the future of IVF and contraception. Stephen Billy, the vice president of state affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told Rep. Lynn and the other anti-choice Tennessee lawmakers to reiterate what is currently legal. Billy added:
“Maybe your caucus gets to a point next year, two years from now, three years from now, where you do want to talk about IVF, and how to regulate it in a more ethical way, or deal with some of those contraceptive issues. But I don’t think that that’s the conversation that you need to have now.”
AUDIO: Stephen Billy, the vice president of state affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, advises lawmakers not to discuss regulating in vitro fertilization and contraception with voters when discussing the current law. They can revisit the topic in a few years’ time, he tells them. (Credit: Webinar audio reviewed by ProPublica)
On Thursday, Rep. Susan Lynn followed this script. Like Rep. Todd, and following the advice from Stephen Billy, the vice president of state affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Rep. Lynn said, “[T]his bill is not necessary. Right now, women have the right - just based on the Constitution of the United States - to walk into any store that offers contraceptives, or to call any clinic that offers IVF, and receive that service.”
After calling the legislation protecting a right to contraception and IVF “a slippery slope,” Rep. Lynn acknowledged that, in the future, “someone might propose” banning contraceptives and IVF, but that the Republican majority state House “has enough common sense not to ban services such as IVF or contraceptives.”
She also disingenuously claimed that it is wrong to bring legislation for the future by binding legislators’ hands. (Something tells me that she would not say that to James Madison.) Of note, Rep. Lynn sponsored Tennessee's “trigger” abortion ban - and lied about what it would do - that specifically take effect in the future if Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The words common sense and Republican don’t belong in the same sentence. This is the kind of stuff that doesn’t get reported by legacy media. This is something that would never get reported by Fox News as they are a GOP propaganda outlet. GOP meaning Gaslighting Our People because that’s what they do best. The MAGA party is an anti-democracy, fascist ideology not a center right, conservative ideology that it once was. The Republican Party doesn’t exist anymore. It’s MAGA or Democrats. The Hands Off protest a week ago certainly felt great. The turnout in Huntsville Alabama was pretty good but still could have been better imo. Lots of folks were protesting everything from SS, Medicaid, Medicare, veterans, DOGE, women’s rights, scientific research, NOAA, education, immigrants and everything in between.
Hopefully all of these national protests against the First Felon 47 will filter down to our extremist state governments. State capitols just might start seeing more protests. In the meantime vote em out.