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Sen. Tim Kaine's State of the Union guest: America's first IVF baby
Sen. Tim Kaine’s State of the Union guest: America’s first IVF baby
By Laura Vozzella
March 6, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. EST
Elizabeth Carr plays with the microphones during a news conference at Norfolk General Hospital, where America's first IVF baby was born in 1981. (Bettmann Archive)
Elizabeth Carr entered the world as a 5-pound, 12-ounce earthquake, making medical history and unleashing furious controversy in 1981 as the first American conceived in a lab.
Born in Norfolk with a “Nova” documentary crew in the delivery room and armed guards in the hall, America’s first IVF baby is 42 today and no longer a novelty. About 2 percent of U.S. births and an estimated 12 million people worldwide are products of in vitro fertilization.
But Carr still stands as potent symbol of that now-commonplace — but newly threatened — way to make a baby. And that’s why Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has invited Carr to be his guest at Thursday’s State of the Union address, highlighting his support for IVF in the wake of an Alabama state Supreme Court ruling last month that imperiled access to the technology in that state and elsewhere.
“I am really kind of the spokesbaby for hope, which is what ultimately … all these reproductive technologies represent,” Carr said in an interview with The Washington Post last week.
{snip}
By Laura Vozzella
Laura Vozzella covers Virginia politics for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she was a political columnist and food writer at the Baltimore Sun, and she has also worked for the Associated Press, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Hartford Courant. Twitter https://twitter.com/LVozzella
By Laura Vozzella
March 6, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. EST
Elizabeth Carr plays with the microphones during a news conference at Norfolk General Hospital, where America's first IVF baby was born in 1981. (Bettmann Archive)
Elizabeth Carr entered the world as a 5-pound, 12-ounce earthquake, making medical history and unleashing furious controversy in 1981 as the first American conceived in a lab.
Born in Norfolk with a “Nova” documentary crew in the delivery room and armed guards in the hall, America’s first IVF baby is 42 today and no longer a novelty. About 2 percent of U.S. births and an estimated 12 million people worldwide are products of in vitro fertilization.
But Carr still stands as potent symbol of that now-commonplace — but newly threatened — way to make a baby. And that’s why Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has invited Carr to be his guest at Thursday’s State of the Union address, highlighting his support for IVF in the wake of an Alabama state Supreme Court ruling last month that imperiled access to the technology in that state and elsewhere.
“I am really kind of the spokesbaby for hope, which is what ultimately … all these reproductive technologies represent,” Carr said in an interview with The Washington Post last week.
{snip}
By Laura Vozzella
Laura Vozzella covers Virginia politics for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she was a political columnist and food writer at the Baltimore Sun, and she has also worked for the Associated Press, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Hartford Courant. Twitter https://twitter.com/LVozzella