Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bill that would have enshrined a right to fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization, the latest attempt by Democrats in an election year to highlight Republican opposition to reproductive freedom protections.
The vote was 48-47, with all but two Republicans voting against advancing the bill, which would give Americans the legal right to access fertility treatments and the right to decide how their reproductive organs are used, stored, and disposed of. That left the bill well short of the 60 votes needed to move forward, an outcome Democrats had expected and even welcomed as part of a strategy to remind voters where Republicans stand on abortion and reproductive health issues.
“We’re going to continue to work with Republicans,” House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told reporters at a press conference before the vote, “but it seems Republicans are completely aligned with the hard-right MAGA minority on this issue.”
The measure came one week after a test vote on a bill that would have made nationwide access to contraception federal law, but Republicans also blocked that measure.
The comments also came a day after the Southern Baptists, America’s largest Protestant denomination and a forerunner of the overall American evangelical movement, passed a resolution opposing the use of in vitro fertilization, a decision that could put many conservative lawmakers in an even tougher political position on the issue.
Republicans have struggled to find a compelling message on IVF that would appease their far-right evangelical base without alienating mainstream conservatives. Many Republicans support legislation that would declare that life begins at conception, which could severely restrict various aspects of IVF. IVF treatments typically involve creating multiple fertilized eggs, freezing them, and implanting only one or two. At the same time, many conservative lawmakers were quick to voice their support for fertility treatments after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen fertilized eggs should be considered children.
Asked whether he agreed with the Southern Baptist Convention’s position that IVF is unethical because frozen embryos are human, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said, “I wouldn’t go that far,” but later hinted he was ambivalent.
“That’s something that needs to be looked at scientifically,” said Tuberville, who co-sponsored a bill on fetal personhood in the last Congress, on Thursday. He supports IVF treatment but said the question of whether frozen embryos should be destroyed “needs to be considered.”
Since the Alabama ruling, Democrats have stressed the importance of protecting access to fertility treatments and in vitro fertilization.
The bill Democrats tried to push forward this week, the IVF Right Act, sponsored by Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, would create a right to fertility treatment and require government insurers that serve federal employees, military personnel and veterans to cover fertility treatments.
Americans overwhelmingly support access to IVF treatment: In an April survey by the Pew Research Center, 7 in 10 adults said access to IVF treatment is a good thing, while only 8% opposed it. 22% said they weren’t sure.
While Senate Democrats tried to put the GOP position on record as at odds with the majority of voters, House Republicans were trying to add an anti-abortion amendment to the annual defense policy bill. The House was scheduled to vote Thursday on a proposal from Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Texas that would ban payments and reimbursements from the Department of Defense for the costs of abortion care, including travel expenses.
Only two Republicans in Congress, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, crossed party lines in support of moving Duckworth’s bill forward. Other GOP senators denounced the move as a “sham vote” and cited several reasons for opposing it, but at the same time continued to maintain that they were staunchly in support of IVF.
Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, accused Democrats of playing politics over IVF, given that it is legal in all 50 states and there is “no danger” it will be made illegal.
“The only reason they would do this is to scare people,” Cornyn said.
Several Republicans, including Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, said Democrats would never give them a chance to offer their own proposal to protect IVF, but the GOP-proposed measures have little support within the GOP and do not include affirmative rights to fertility treatment.
In the Senate, Republicans have tried to ease the political burden on the IVF issue by enacting their own legislation. Cruz and Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, have introduced legislation that would block Medicaid funding to states that ban IVF treatments. But the bill has only three Republican cosponsors, drawing the ire of abortion opponents. Abortion rights supporters have also criticized the bill as pointless because it would do nothing to protect access to fertility treatments if states severely restrict them but do not ban them outright.
Duckworth called the Republican bill a “sham” because it does not explicitly protect IVF donors from prosecution or civil liability under laws that treat fetuses as persons.
“If fetal personhood exists and we don’t address that issue, we’ll end up with what happened in Alabama: All the IVF clinics will be closed,” she said.
Britt said Duckworth’s bill “tramples on religious freedom” and suggests it could force IVF treatments to be offered to people who don’t believe in the treatment, though Democrats point out that the bill would not force anyone to offer such treatments.
