The Great Nevada Contradiction

Birth and Death at the Hands of the Law

The Nevada Legislature, never one to let consistency get in the way of lawmaking, has introduced Senate Bill 217, which would enshrine in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a right under state law. That’s right, folks—the very same political outfit that declared abortion a sacred right has now taken up the banner of birth promotion, proving once and for all that if there’s a political principle at work here, it’s the principle of legislating by contradiction.

One moment, they insist unborn life is an inconvenience best removed, and the next, they declare that science must step in where nature hesitates, with government-mandated protections to ensure every desired baby gets its fair shot at existence—at least, the ones that make it past the petri dish stage. Talk about a two-headed clown.

IVF, as Yale Medicine explains, is a procedure where an egg meets a sperm in a laboratory dish, after which scientists play a game of “pick the winner.” But SB 217 doesn’t just expand access to IVF—it rewrites the very definition of human life to accommodate modern sensibilities.

Under this bill, a fertilized human embryo, in any stage before it takes up residence in a uterus, “is not an unborn child, a minor child, a person, a natural person, or any other term that connotes a human being.” In other words, the state now reserves the right to declare when life begins—not science, not common sense, and certainly not God.

Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, proclaimed IVF procedures “deserve strong legal protections” as though the fate of fertilized embryos was the real issue rather than the inconvenient moral tightrope the legislature now walks. One day, it’s a clump of cells with no rights, and then it’s the miraculous outcome of medical science.

This flurry of lawmaking comes just one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order expanding IVF rights. In true Trumpian fashion, his order laid out the stark reality—IVF treatments cost anywhere from $12,000 to $25,000 per cycle—a steep price for would-be parents, but an even steeper one when considering that as of March 2024, over one million frozen embryos sit in limbo across America, waiting to be selected, discarded, or donated.

According to the National Library of Medicine, from 2004 to 2019, fewer than 8,500 donated embryos resulted in live births—a stark reminder that for all the legislative fanfare, the fate of these embryos is often no different from those deemed inconvenient in the womb.

So, what have we learned? Life–in the eyes of a Nevada lawmaker–is a matter of convenience—to be discarded when unwanted, manufactured when desired, and redefined whenever politically expedient.

And the best part? You get to pay for it, one way or another.