Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would create a statutory right to access fertility treatments, specifically IVF. The Right to IVF Act would also allow the Department of Justice to file civil actions against any person or entity that tries to impose limits.
“Access to IVF can no longer be taken for granted,” Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “From the moment the MAGA Supreme Court eliminated Roe, the hard right made clear that they’d keep going.”
This was largely a show vote to make a political point ahead of the election. Democrats had previously brought the same bill up for a vote in June and Republicans blocked it then too.
“Last time, Republicans killed this bill and Trump said nothing,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said. “Now he says he is a leader on IVF. It lowers the cost of IVF for families with stronger insurance coverage requirements, and it helps more veterans and service members get IVF.”
Despite voting against the bill, Republicans said they support IVF.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., is an OB/GYN who has delivered more than 5,000 babies. He said he also helped hundreds of couples conceive through IVF. However, he voted against the bill because he said it doesn’t have good guardrails.
“It doesn’t have any type of religious protections for those people that don’t want to participate in it, and it doesn’t even define, require a diagnosis of infertility for IVF to be covered,” Sen. Roger Marshall said. “So I think it’s bad medicine, it’s bad policy.”
Marshall said he would have voted for the bill proposed by Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas. That bill does not compel anyone to provide the services and allows states to create health and safety standards. The legislation makes a state ineligible to receive Medicaid funding if it creates an outright ban on IVF. Republicans described that proposal as the right balance between life and liberty. Democrats blocked it the same way the GOP blocked theirs.
Republicans want religious protections because if any of the embryos created during the IVF process are not used, they can be destroyed. That would require those who believe life begins at conception to go against their religious teachings.
