Here’s why California GOP Rep. Michelle Steel took her name off an anti-abortion bill

Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Seal Beach, withdrew her co-sponsorship of an anti-abortion bill, saying she does not support federal restrictions on in vitro fertilization.

“I’m removing myself from the bill because it could create confusion about my support for the blessings of having children through IVF,” she said on the House floor Thursday afternoon. “Mr. Speaker, I hereby remove my name as co-sponsor.”

The public withdrawal of her name from the “Life at Conception Act,” which “declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being” and defines that as “including the moment of fertilization, cloning or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being,” comes nearly two months after Steel reaffirmed her support for the legislation in January.

“Rep. Steel’s position remains clear: She is pro-life with the exceptions of rape, incest and the health and life of the mother and does not support a national ban on abortion,” Claire Nance, a spokesperson for Steel, said in January amid questions about the timing of her support for the anti-abortion bill.

But more recently, IVF procedures, which help women become pregnant, were thrust into the spotlight after Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children, per state law, setting off a national debate about whether access to the treatment should be protected. Alabama’s governor Wednesday evening signed into law protections for doctors who provide IVF services.

Last week, Steel was one of several lawmakers to introduce a resolution to support the protection for IVF treatments, an infertility treatment.

“As someone who started my family with IVF, I understand how critical it is to so many families that want to have children,” she said Thursday.

Abortion rights is expected to be a defining issue in the race for California’s 45th congressional district, a swing seat in Orange County that national Democrats are eager to flip in November.

Up for reelection this year, Steel is one of several Republicans who represents a district that went for President Joe Biden in 2020.

Polling continues to show that most Americans believe abortion should be legal, at least to some degree.

In the 2022 election, when Proposition 1 — a constitutional amendment that enshrined protections for abortion rights in California’s constitution — was on the ballot, voters in CA-45 solidly backed the abortion rights measure, with 55.1% voting for it.