Congresswoman Elise Stefanik said Wednesday that she wants to make the fertility procedure IVF cheaper for New York families, backing a bill in Washington to do just that.

But just over a year ago, Stefanik told Mohawk Valley radio listeners that she was opposed to the procedure, as she explained her broader pro-life position.

“I oppose late term abortion, I’m proudly pro-life, and I oppose access to IVF, access to birth control,” she told Utica-area station Talk 100.7 F.M., on their “Talk of the Town” show on Oct. 17, 2024.

That position, reiterated just before Stefanik was set to stand for reelection in her rural North Country district of NY-21, seems at odds with her longstanding position, reiterated Wednesday.

“Pro-family policies begin with affordability,” she said in a statement announcing her support for the bill. “And as the mom of a young son, I hope to make the joy of raising a family more accessible for hardworking New Yorkers struggling with infertility. This legislation would ease the financial burden that comes with IVF and bring the opportunity of starting a family more within reach for hopeful couples.”

In a statement to the Watertown Daily Times, Stefanik campaign spokesman Alex Degrasse said the Congresswoman must have “misheard” the question posed in that Utica interview, and regularly supports IVF policy. On social media, Stefanik said the clip was an out-of-context misstep and not reflective of her real position.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign nevertheless immediately jumped on the apparent dichotomy between Stefanik’s recent legislative support for IVF and her apparently mistaken comment a year ago.

“We don’t have to tell you what Sellout Stefanik’s war on New York families looks like — she admitted it herself, on tape: she ‘opposes access to IVF,’ voted against the child tax credit three separate times, and is teaming up with Donald Trump to jack up prices on families with expensive tariffs,” said Sarafina Chitika, campaign spokesperson for the Hochul campaign. “Just like Trump, Stefanik is lying through her teeth about her record — she’s about to learn the hard way that New Yorkers won’t be handing the keys of this state to Trump’s favorite MAGA cheerleader.”

Stefanik’s position on IVF has been largely mixed while she’s been in Congress; she opposed the “Right to IVF Act” backed by Democrats, arguing that it had too many flaws to allow it to become law, but she’s generally supported efforts to expand “responsible IVF,” although those bills have not come to a vote. She has also supported legislation to expand access to contraceptives over-the-counter, while voting against another Democrat-led bill to guarantee a national right to contraceptive use.

She cosponsored two bills in the House to expand access to IVF and contraception, and she’s backed a bill in the House Armed Services Committee that would expand IVF coverage for military families, although it didn’t make it to the final bill as signed.

Her past statements point mainly to support for IVF. In March 2024, she was quoted by NBC News as telling reporters that she supports IVF “strongly.”

“I’ve always spoken to this issue with compassion, and I strongly support IVF,” Stefanik told NBC. “Members are going to sign on to bills that they support, and again, my position is I support IVF, and the House Republicans support IVF, the speaker strongly supports IVF, the top of the ticket, President Trump, supports IVF.”

In Feb. 2024, she posted to social media that she “strongly supports IVF.”

The bill Stefanik is backing was introduced by Hudson Valley Representative Mike R. Lawler, R-Pearl River, who has a more moderate position on reproductive rights than many of his Republican colleagues.

The bill Lawler and now Stefanik are backing, introduced in March of this year, would allow for a tax credit of up to $40,000 per couple in tax credits to help cover the costs of seeking IVF treatment.

In the IVF process, formally in-vitro fertilization, a mother’s egg or eggs are removed and fertilized in a lab, then re-implanted in the mother to grow and become a fetus. The process has grown in popularity over the last decade as scientific advances have made it more reliable and more affordable, allowing people who were unable to become pregnant to conceive a child.

Some opponents, especially religious opponents, cite some approaches to the IVF process that fertilize multiple eggs, freezing unused “embyros” for potential future use or eventual destruction. Those who believe life starts at conception consider it equivalent to abortion.

After the Supreme Court struck down the nationwide right to abortion in 2022, some conservative states implemented strict “fetal personhood” laws that temporarily shut down IVF clinics, although interpretations by top courts have generally restored access to the procedure.

But IVF has become more widely used over the years, with over 95,000 babies born in the U.S. convinced through the process in 2023 according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. That’s 2.6% of all births in the country.