Sen. Mark Kelly, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords open up about their IVF experience

Sen. Mark Kelly and his wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, detailed their efforts to have a child using in vitro fertilization until the 2011 shooting that nearly killed her.

The Democratic couple’s newly published essay in People magazine personalizes an issue that has joined abortion rights as politically charged and facing an uncertain legal future.

“These past few months, as we’ve seen reproductive freedoms increasingly under attack in the absence of the protections of Roe v. Wade, our hearts break for the couples who, all of the sudden, can’t decide for themselves how and when to start their family,” the couple wrote.

“Make no mistake: The freedom to start a family with IVF is under threat,” they continued. “Our dream of having a child together was taken away by a gunman. The dreams of Americans to have a child together could be taken away by politicians.”

IVF took on newfound political importance in February after the Alabama Supreme Court held that the state’s constitutional protection of the “rights of unborn children” extended to civil liability in an IVF clinic.

The all-Republican court made the ruling in a pair of wrongful death cases brought by couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic.

Republicans nationally, including U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake in Arizona, quickly distanced themselves from IVF restrictions, a position that Lake reiterated Thursday in a social media post in response to the People article.

“This is a heartbreaking story. IVF is extremely important for helping countless families experience the joy of parenthood,” Lake wrote. “Rest assured as a U.S. Senator I will fight to ensure IVF remains available and protected in Arizona.”

Kelly, who has endorsed Lake’s Democratic rival, Rep. Ruben Gallego and vowed to help defeat Lake, voted last week for a bill to mandate insurance coverage for IVF procedures nationally. He also supports another bill that would create a federal right to IVF. That bill remains on hold because of Republican resistance.

Giffords survived an attempted assassination on Jan. 8, 2011, at a constituent event near Tucson. Six people died and 12 others were wounded in an attack that ultimately ended her congressional career.

Beyond that, it cost her in other ways, Giffords and Kelly wrote.

“Our lives changed forever on January 8th, 2011, when a gunman opened fire at a Congress on Your Corner event in Tucson,” they wrote.

“Six lives were lost, many more were injured, and Gabby was shot in the head. Of everything that changed that day — both of us halting our careers, the beginning of a long, difficult road to recovery — we also lost something we wanted very much: the opportunity to have a child together.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Mark Kelly, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords discuss IVF experience