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On Tuesday, Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted to block the passage of a Democratic-sponsored bill that seeks to provide a national right to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and mandate insurance coverage of such treatments.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, put forward the Right to IVF bill in response to the Alabama Supreme Court’s February ruling that embryos used in IVF procedures should be considered human beings. In the wake of that ruling, IVF has become a prominent national issue at the forefront of the 2024 election cycle, with Democrats claiming that a Trump administration would harm access to fertility care.
Many Republicans, among them Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, have argued against the Democrats’ accusations and come out in support of access to IVF. However, Tuesday’s vote saw Senate Republicans — including Britt and fellow Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville — vote to reject the bill that would protect and expand access to such treatment for the second time since it was introduced in June.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, were the only two Republicans to vote in support of the bill. No Democrats voted against the resolution. Ultimately, the legislation failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to pass with only 51 “yeas” to 44 “nays” with five senators, three of them Republicans, abstaining.
The results of the vote will not only affect the pursuit of national IVF protections, but will almost certainly play into Democrats’ electoral strategy ahead of November. IVF had already gained national spotlight from Democrats like Duckworth and former First Lady Michelle Obama at August’s Democratic National Convention. Now, Democrats are sure to point to this latest vote as evidence to support their claim that Republicans do indeed wish to limit access to IVF.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, questioned whether Republicans were being honest about their support for IVF.
“Here’s what we’re asking our Republican friends,” Schumer said. “Do you support American families’ access to in vitro fertilization or not?”
Former President and GOP nominee Donald Trump himself has said that he would mandate insurance companies to cover IVF — just as Duckworth’s bill proposes — if elected in November. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said if Trump’s “promise to help families pay for it is more than just bluster, there is no reason we can’t pass this bill into law and help a lot of people.”
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said that Democrats “shoved through a vote… knowing it would have no chance of passing, because they wanted to be able to say, ‘We support IVF, and the other guys don’t.’”
Vance did not elaborate on why the vote had “no chance of passing.” Vance himself was one of the three Republicans who abstained from voting on the bill.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Britt had also made similar appeals, accusing Schumer of creating a “fall of fear-mongering” following a “summer of scare tactics” by pushing the bill forward as an apparent political ploy.
A Senate GOP aide told the Wall Street Journal that Republicans who voted against the legislation were concerned that the bill would prevent states from instituting regulations protecting religious entities that might object to the unnecessary destruction of embryos. Additionally, the aide said that the bill wouldn’t protect workers who might object to IVF treatments on similar religious grounds.
Dr. Kaylen Silverberg, M.D., the medical director at Texas Fertility Center and the Advisory Board chair for Americans for IVF told APR that he does not believe the vote necessarily indicates that Republicans oppose IVF. Silverberg said that the outcome was “not surprising” but that Republican dissent is likely due to specifics issues with the bill’s language and provisions and not a general opposition to fertility treatment.
It is possible that Republicans took specific issue with a section of the bill that allows individuals, health care providers, and the Department of Justice to bring civil actions “against states, individuals, or entities that implement or enforce limitations or requirements that violate” its provisions.
Although the Right to IVF bill failed to pass the Senate, the HOPE with Fertility Services Act which also promises to mandate insurance coverage of IVF and fertility care is still alive in the House of Representatives where it is backed by a bipartisan coalition.
