Republicans have blocked for a second time this year legislation to establish a nationwide right to in vitro fertilization, arguing that the vote is an election-year stunt after Democrats forced a vote on the issue.
The Senate vote was Democrats’ latest attempt to force Republicans into a defensive stance on women’s health issues and highlight policy differences between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in the presidential race, especially as Trump has called himself a “leader on IVF.”
The 51-44 vote was short of the 60 votes needed to move forward on the bill, with only two Republicans voting in favor. Democrats say Republicans who insist they support IVF are being hypocritical because they won’t support legislation guaranteeing a right to it.
“They say they support IVF — here you go, vote on this,” said Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the bill’s lead sponsor and a military veteran who has used the fertility treatment to have her two children.
The Democratic push started earlier this year after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Several clinics in the state suspended IVF treatments until the GOP-led legislature rushed to enact a law to provide legal protections for the clinics.
Democrats quickly capitalized, holding a vote in June on Duckworth’s bill and warning that the U.S. Supreme Court could go after the procedure after it overturned the right to an abortion in 2022.
The bill would establish a nationwide right for patients to access IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies and a right for doctors and insurance companies to provide it, an effort to pre-empt state efforts to limit the services. It would also require more health insurers to cover it and expand coverage for military service members and veterans.
In a statement after the vote, Harris said Republicans in Congress “have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.”
Republican vice presidential candidate and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who missed the vote because he was campaigning, said during a stop in Wisconsin that the measure was not a serious IVF bill, but a measure designed to make Republicans look bad.
“The Senate blocked a ridiculous showboat bill that had no chance of passing,” Vance said.
Republicans argued that the federal government shouldn’t tell states what to do and that the bill was an unserious effort. Only Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted with Democrats to move forward on the bill both times.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said that Democrats are trying to create a political issue “where there isn’t one.”
“Let me remind everybody that Republicans support IVF, full stop,” Thune said just before the vote.
