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CARSON CITY, Nevada (LifeSiteNews) — Nevada’s liberal Republican governor vetoed legislation that would have created a “right” to embryo-destroying in-vitro fertilization.

Though Gov. Joe Lombardo professes to be Catholic, he previously signed abortion legislation backed by Planned Parenthood and a different bill that forced insurance companies to cover transgender drugs and surgeries.

Despite his socially liberal tendencies, Lombardo vetoed Senate Bill 217. He did not cite any ethical concerns but rather worried the bill would open up government entities and private organizations to lawsuits. The bill allows for lawsuits against entities that “substantially” burden someone seeking IVF. The law also ignores the basic humanity of human embryos.

The law would declare: “Any fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists in any form before implantation in the uterus of a human body is not an unborn child, a minor child, a person, a natural person or any other term that connotes a human being for any purpose under the law or regulations of this State or any political subdivision thereof.”

Pro-life and pro-family groups cited both the cost and ethical concerns in their letter.

“The bill would fabricate a statutory right to in-vitro fertilization in Nevada,” a coalition letter from CatholicVote stated. Opponents included Reno Bishop Daniel Mueggenborg, Nevada Right to Life, and the Family Research Council.

IVF is ethically problematic because it separates sexuality from procreation. Furthermore, it necessarily involves the direct destruction of human embryonic children, which is tantamount to abortion.

“The practitioners often also implant more embryos in the woman’s uterus than desired, and may selectively abort some of them if multiple are successfully implanted in her womb,” the coalition letter stated.

Citing research, the letter notes, “for every human embryo created through IVF and carried to term, nine are left behind.”

“The remaining human embryos are usually either destroyed or left to languish in freezers, sometimes for decades, with no clear laws or regulations on what to do with them,” the opponents wrote. “Based on estimates derived from CDC figures, at least 1.5 million human embryos created through IVF are destroyed every year.”

The veto is a positive sign, as even some Republicans have rushed to embrace embryo-destroying IVF following an Alabama Supreme Court ruling in 2024.

In 2024, the state’s highest court affirmed human beings are deserving of legal protection regardless if they are in a freezer at an IVF facility or in a mother’s womb or after being born.

Soon after, Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Katie Britt rushed to try to punish states that might prohibit IVF, threatening to pull all their Medicaid insurance funding (meant to help poor people access healthcare) if they did not recognize a “right” to the procedures.

Similarly, President Donald Trump has tasked his administration with studying how to expand access to the procedures.

A LifeSiteNews analysis found that “free” in-vitro fertilization coverage, either through private health insurance or government plans, would lead to the intentional destruction of at least 2.4 million human embryonic children per year – more than the amount killed through abortion.

Recently, IVF companies have come under fire for pushing technology that allows parents to weed out babies who might be born with different diseases or conditions.

Pray for an end to IVF and the protection of human embryos: Join our prayer pledge