U.S. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama addresses a crowd at a breakfast hosted by the Chamber of Commerce in Montgomery on Nov. 3, 2023. (Alander Rocha/Alabama Reflector)

WASHINGTON — Two Republican U.S. senators have teamed up to try to prevent states from banning in vitro fertilization, months after the Alabama state Supreme Court upended access to the procedure by ruling fertilized embryos were children under state law.

Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama and Ted Cruz of Texas introduced a three-page bill on Monday that would cut off a state’s Medicaid funding if that state were to bar in vitro fertilization.

“As a mom, I know firsthand that there is no greater blessing than our children, and IVF helps families across our nation experience the joyous miracle of life, grow, and thrive,” Britt wrote in a statement. “This commonsense piece of legislation affirms both life and liberty — family and freedom, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact it into law.”

Cruz wrote that “IVF has given miraculous hope to millions of Americans, and it has given families across the country the gift of children.”

The bill comes months after the Alabama state Supreme Court ruled that fertilized embryos that were frozen or hadn’t been implanted constituted children under an 1872 law.

State lawmakers approved and Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation afterward to provide civil and criminal protections to the state’s IVF clinics so that they might resume their work. Questions, however, remain and at least one of the state’s IVF clinics has closed.

Democrats in Congress have introduced their own bills to provide nationwide protections for IVF, though two of those bills have been blocked from quickly passing the Senate by GOP lawmakers.

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi in late February prevented Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth from receiving unanimous consent to pass a bill that would have protected IVF nationwide.

That bill would have blocked limitations on “assisted reproductive technology services” that are “more burdensome than limitations or requirements imposed on medically comparable procedures, do not significantly advance reproductive health or the safety of such services and unduly restrict access to such services.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford in March blocked Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray from quickly passing a bill that would have expanded access to in vitro fertilization for military service members and veterans.