WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bill that would have enshrined the 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 moving forward with the bill, which would give Americans the legal right to fertility treatment 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 of Republican positions on abortion and reproductive health issues.
“Protecting IVF should be the easiest vote any senator can take this year,” said Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “It’s contradictory to claim to pro-family and then block protections for IVF.”
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, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States and a pioneer of the overall American evangelical movement, passed a resolution opposing 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 satisfy 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 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 embryos should be considered children.
Asked whether he agreed with the Southern Baptist Convention’s position that IVF is unethical because frozen embryos are human, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-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 said he supports IVF treatments but that the question of whether frozen embryos should be destroyed “needs to be looked at.”
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, and an additional 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 attach an anti-abortion amendment to the annual defense policy bill. The House was scheduled to vote Thursday on a proposal by Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Texas to ban payments and reimbursements from the Department of Defense for abortion care costs, including travel expenses.
Only two Republicans in Congress, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, crossed party lines in support of Duckworth’s bill. Other Republican senators denounced the move as a “sham vote” and cited several reasons for their opposition, while continuing to maintain that they staunchly support IVF.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) accused Democrats of playing politics over IVF, since 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 try 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 treatment, but the GOP-proposed measures have little support within the GOP and do not include affirmative fertility rights.
In the Senate, Republicans have tried to ease the political burden on the IVF issue by enacting their own bill. Sen. Cruz and Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama have introduced a bill 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 also criticize 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 that IVF treatments could be forced on people who don’t believe in them, though Democrats point out that the bill would not force anyone to provide such treatments.
