When Zoneraich called the national group that works with physicians in his field, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, it had no idea the bills even existed. And, yes, it told him, he should be very, concerned.
Zoneraich had learned about the bills just days before their first committee hearings, which is the only time public comment is allowed. He managed to pull together a group of colleagues to testify — but when they got to the Capitol, they learned that the Senate and the House were hearing the same bills in committee at the very same time. (That's practically unheard of, Capitol watchers tell me.) The physicians were forced to choose which committee to attend.
Physicians say that two new bills pushed by a conservative Christian group could have serious implications for Arizona fertility patients.
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Even more galling: Representative Barto, who was running the House committee hearing, actually juggled the order in which bills were heard to give CAP's out-of-state expert time to get done testifying at the Senate and sprint over to the House. The physicians were given no such preference.
When it came time to vote, Zoneraich recalls, the Republican state representatives all provided lengthy explanations of the problems they had with the bill — yet ultimately, they all voted for it.
"We're hearing these explanations, and we're thinking they're actually going to vote no," he recalls. "They're making arguments why the bill shouldn't go through, and yet they were all voting yes!"
Indeed, the amended bills sailed through the Senate and appear likely to pass in the House. The physicians believe their only hope may be a veto from Governor Jan Brewer. They've been trying to put the pressure on, as is RESOLVE and its network of parents. They point out that one of the bills would add duplicative regulation to the egg-donation process. (The FDA already requires that certain disclosures be made to egg donors. And unlike the state of Arizona, they actually have the mechanism to see that the rules are being followed.) They also note that the second bill will likely wipe out any form of research using embryos in Arizona — including, perhaps, the ability of local physicians to stay up to date with training and new techniques.
The pressure is being felt. Senator Linda Gray, the Phoenix Republican who served as a primary sponsor of both Senate bills, admits that she was somewhat blind-sided by all the criticism the bill has received.
Incredibly, Gray actually confirmed to me last week what the doctors have long assumed: She didn't read the bills before signing on as their primary sponsor.
"I don't think CAP realized the extent that the bill was going to," she tells me. "We were introducing bills there that last week as fast we could. I had not read them completely through." Once she started hearing concerns, she says, "we began looking at that, and calling CAP. I told them, 'I want this out,' and they worked with me."
Gray insisted that she never intended to upset fertility specialists or their patients. Three decades ago, she says, she herself was a member of RESOLVE, the chief support/advocacy group for women dealing with infertility. Her only grandchild is the happy result of in vitro fertilization.
"I know the pain these families go through," she says. She stresses that the amendments in place will allow clinics to advertise for egg donors and will allow payment beyond "direct" expenses. They'll also be stripping the possible felony punishment for doctors, although the ban on harming an embryo through research will remain.
She notes, truthfully, that one local infertility specialist, Drew Moffitt, is now in favor of the bill. "We worked with infertility clinics," she says.
But that's cold comfort to the other clinics in town; they appear to be uniformly opposed. Tipton, of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, says they are "bad bills." And Larsen, the Chandler-based based infertility specialist, tells me that they will have a big impact.
"I don't think they fully considered the implications of what they were doing," he says. "Do they want to make it harder for women to get in vitro fertilization treatment? Because that's what you're going to get."
And the physicians say it's all the more appalling that this could well happen so quickly, with so little discussion.
"To me, it just saddens me that they'd push something like this through with no debate," Larsen says. "If you want to ban embryo research in Arizona, at least have an open hearing on it."
Zoneraich agrees.
"This has been a crash course in politics," he says. "It's been unbelievable."
