Senate Republicans block Democratic bill to protect IVF nationwide

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic-led bill Thursday to codify broad federal protections for in vitro fertilization in the midst of a growing partisan clash over reproductive rights in the United States.

The vote was 48-47, with just two Republicans voting for it: Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine. Others in the GOP said the legislation went too far, instead signing on to a scaled-back version that Democrats said was ineffectual.

The Right To IVF Act was brought up for a vote by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to put the GOP in a political predicament less than five months before the 2024 elections. Democrats say the conservative-led Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to eliminate federal abortion rights means that access to contraception and IVF are also at risk.

Introduced by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., it would establish a federal right for individuals to access IVF-assisted reproductive technology services, for providers to offer the procedure and for insurers to cover it. Those rights could not be hindered by states.

At the heart of the tension is a belief among many social conservatives that life begins at conception. If written into law, that could mean that embryos discarded as part of the IVF process — a common occurrence — are treated as murder or manslaughter. Many Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have signed on to legislation that would give a fertilized egg the rights of a person.

Ahead of the vote, Senate Republicans moved to express their support for IVF. They sought to advance a narrower bill that would cut off Medicaid funding for states if they banned IVF. All 49 GOP senators signed a statement by Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., accusing Democrats of waging “a partisan campaign of false fearmongering intended to mislead and confuse the American people.”

“We strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF, which has allowed millions of aspiring parents to start and grow their families,” the senators said in the statement.

Murray said the GOP rhetoric is hollow as “actions speak louder than words—and the record here tells a very different story.”

“Republicans have introduced their own legislation so they can pretend to address the same problem they say doesn’t exist, but their bill has huge loopholes that would let states restrict IVF in all different kinds of ways,” she told reporters. “It purposefully ignores what happens to unused embryos, and it would do nothing to stop fetal personhood laws from totally upending IVF care.”

In an interview before the vote, Murray argued that part of the goal is to convey to voters that the way to protect reproductive rights going forward is to elect more Democrats in the 2024 elections.

“I think it’s pretty clear where the votes are in the current U.S. Senate,” she said. “And the next election makes all the difference.”