Dear Governor Romney,

I have watched your campaign passionately advocate for the pro-life cause throughout this year’s election.  I am hoping you expand your support to include pro-family building by endorsing passage of the Family Act of 2011 Bill.  This would help millions of fertility challenged women who passionately want to bring life into this world by giving them a tax credit towards medical expenses with a lifetime maximum that amounts to little more than one IVF cycle at a top fertility clinic.

I read that two of your beautiful grandchildren are the miraculous result of fertility science.  Imagine if financial obstacles had prevented your son and daughter-in-law from realizing the joy of parenthood that can be achieved with medical fertility treatments.

It is interesting that very little attention is paid by the media to the fact that the medical profession has labeled infertility a disability. Providing a tax credit for medical expenses would ease at least the financial stress of dealing with this disability.

Eleven years ago, my wife and I leveraged our house, credit cards, and emotional sanity for a final shot at having a biological child traveling to one of the top clinics in the country to increase the odds of success.  Thankfully, the leap of faith paid off, and our formerly frozen embryo turned ten years old a few weeks ago.

The doctor who helped us ultimately achieve our success said something to me about a woman’s desire to have a child that stuck with me: for women, having a child is as basic a need as breathing, eating and sleeping.

Nowadays women (and men) spend most of their prime reproductive years trying to do the “right things” to prepare for parenthood: obtain an education, stay healthy, achieve financial stability and gain job experience so that they have the means to provide well for a child.  The only drawback: their own biological time clock is working against them the entire time.

It isn’t realistic to try to change the entire socioeconomic framework of how we build families to be more aligned with our natural procreative biology.  That’s why the Family Act is such a simple alternative. It will provide these aspiring mothers with a financial cushion when they are faced with the choice of having to achieve biological parenthood with the help of reproductive medicine.

Grandparenthood for you and Mrs. Romney has been multiplied by the wonders of reproductive medicine.  With more than seven million couples facing infertility treatment for a chance at a child, imagine how many playmates your grandchildren might have someday if a financial barrier is removed with the passage of The Family Act of 2011 Bill.

Sincerely,

 

Denny Ceizyk