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WASHINGTON (CN) — Senate Democrats have once again failed on Tuesday to capture enough votes to advance legislation that would protect Americans’ access to in vitro fertilization, as they angled to back Republicans into a corner on the issue ahead of the presidential election.
Democrats had revived their Right to IVF Act in recent weeks, as they warn that a GOP victory in November would mean tighter restrictions on reproductive freedoms, including abortion, contraception and access to in vitro fertilization, a treatment used for couples struggling to have children.
If made law, the Right to IVF Act would have enshrined access to the procedure into federal law and would have expanded certain insurance coverage for the treatment. The bill also would have added IVF to military health care plans.
The measure’s first iteration failed on a procedural vote back in June — and the renewed legislation met a similar fate Tuesday, as senators voted 51-44 not to open debate, falling just nine short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the bill.
Democrats dialed in on IVF following a February Alabama Supreme Court ruling which held that destroying frozen embryos used in the treatment was a crime under state law. Though the state legislature later nullified the court’s decision, it caused several IVF centers to pause treatment, sparking concerns about a crackdown on reproductive freedoms.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle condemned the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, and both Democrats and Republicans have said that they support Americans’ access to IVF treatment. But Democrats, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling rolling back abortion rights, have suggested that the procedure could be next on the chopping block under a GOP White House.
The revived Right to IVF Act, Democratic leadership has said, would serve as a political litmus test for Republicans who say they support the procedure but who refused to back the legislation in June.
“It was astounding to watch them claim, of course they support families, of course they support IVF — just not enough to actually vote to protect it,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon. He said that the sequel vote on Democrats’ IVF legislation was a “second chance” for Republicans to show where they stand on the issue.
“This is a chance for my colleagues across the aisle to put their vote where their mouths have been,” said Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, who co-sponsored the Right to IVF Act. “They say they support IVF. Here you go. Vote on this.”
But Republicans, as they did over the summer, panned their colleagues’ measure as a “show vote” with little legislative necessity.
“This is not an attempt to make law,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune said during a news conference Tuesday with Republican leadership. “This is not an attempt to get an outcome or to legislate. This is simply an attempt by Democrats to create a political issue where there isn’t one.”
Thune added that Republicans support IVF, “full stop.”
Two GOP lawmakers, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Alabama Senator Katie Britt, introduced their own legislation in May that would have barred any state with an IVF ban from accessing federal health care funds through Medicaid. Britt has previously said that the Senate should vote on her bill rather than the Democrats’ version, which she labeled “fear-mongering.”
In a statement Tuesday, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin bashed Republicans for voting down the second Right to IVF Act.
“It’s proof positive: Congressional Republicans cannot be trusted when they say they support IVF,” he wrote.
Reproductive rights have become a hot-button issue in the presidential race, and Democrats have been eager to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire on the subject. They claim that former President Donald Trump, if elected again, would sign a national ban on abortion, and that the GOP would set their sights on other reproductive freedoms next.
In his opinion for the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , which restricted U.S. abortion rights, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that the court could use the new precedent to relitigate Griswold v. Connecticut , the case which ensured access to contraceptives.
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