WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would make it a right nationwide for women to access in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer forced a vote on the matter Thursday in an effort to drive an election-year contrast on reproductive care.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran who has used the fertility treatment to have her two children, has championed the bill, called the Right to IVF Act. The bill would have also expanded access through insurance as well as for military members and veterans.
“As a mom who struggled with infertility for years, as a parent who needed IVF to have my two beautiful little girls, all I can say to my Republican colleagues in this moment is, ‘How dare you,’” Duckworth, D-Ill., said following the vote.
All Republicans except Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against advancing the measure, ensuring that it only gained 48 votes — well short of the 60 votes needed. Instead, GOP senators offered their own, alternative legislation that would discourage states from enacting explicit bans on the treatment. Democrats in turn blocked it Wednesday.
The overtly political back-and-forth, with no attempt at finding a legislative compromise, showed how quickly Congress has shifted into a campaign mindset five months out from the fall election.
As Schumer seeks to protect a narrow Senate majority and buoy Democrats’ hopes of holding the White House, he has sought to spotlight Republican intransigence to federal legislation that would guarantee women’s rights to reproductive care. Democrats have campaigned heavily on the issue ever since the 2022 Supreme Court decision that ended a federal right to abortion.
“The anti-abortion movement is not yet finished. Now that Roe is gone, they have set their sights to a new target — in vitro fertilization,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday.
Schumer, a New York Democrat, also held a vote last week on legislation to protect access to contraception, but Republicans blocked it, arguing it was nothing more than a political stunt. Republicans have also blocked previous attempts to quickly pass IVF protections. They stressed that they support IVF and said Schumer was once again playing to the campaign trail with Thursday’s vote.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said Democrats were trying to “politicize a deeply personal issue for short term political gain.” He added that Schumer had brought the bill to the floor without allowing the committee work and studies that usually mark a serious piece of legislation.
Still, Schumer said he would continue to bring up legislation on reproductive care.
“Republicans are twisting themselves in knots trying to run away from their very record on reproductive freedom,” he said at a news conference following the vote.
Democrats took to the Senate floor Thursday to make a series of speeches that highlighted personal stories of how people have been able to have children using IVF. They say Congress must protect access to the fertility treatment after the Supreme Court in 2022 allowed states to ban abortions and the Alabama Supreme Court in February ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Several clinics in the state suspended IVF treatments until the state enacted a law to provide legal protections for IVF clinics.
“After the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that a frozen embryo is the same, has the exact same rights as a living, breathing person, women who waited for months and spent tens of thousands of dollars and were days away from an IVF appointment were left to wonder if it was all for nothing when their treatment was abruptly canceled,” said Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat.
Most Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have expressed support for IVF, but have also largely declined to tell states how to regulate reproductive care. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican GOP presidential nominee, met with lawmakers on Thursday and told them that abortion rules should be left to the states. He also said he supported exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother, according to Republicans in the meetings.
Republicans are seeking to come up with a response to voters’ concerns about access to abortion and reproductive care — an issue that is expected to figure largely in the November election. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday that preserved access to the abortion pill mifepristone, anti-abortion groups expressed dismay while most Republicans remained quiet.
In the Senate this week, Republicans highlighted their efforts to expand access to fertility treatments, yet stopped short of endorsing the Democratic plan.
