Congress sank two competing IVF access bills earlier this year: the Democrat-backed Right to IVF Act and the Republican-sponsored IVF Protection Act.
“The Senate will vote once again to take up the very same bill we voted on earlier this summer, establishing a nationwide right to IVF and making it easier for people to access this critical treatment,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor.
“Republicans can’t claim to be profamily on one hand, only to block pro-family policies like federal protections for IVF and the child tax credit. But that’s what they did this summer, and I hope we get a different outcome when we vote for a second time,” he added.
Schumer’s announcement comes just days after former President Trump declared in his debate with Vice President Harris that he has been “a leader on IVF.”
Trump was critical of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that put IVF on the national stage earlier this year and in August called for universal coverage of the treatments.
Schumer’s move will likely face similar long odds a second time around but will put Republicans on record just weeks before the election.
IVF has been a political minefield for Republicans, as many have largely avoided a key question: If they believe life begins at conception, how should IVF clinics handle viable embryos that are not implanted?
In response to the Democratic attacks, staunchly anti-abortion Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Katie Britt (Ala.) tried to pass their own bill they said was aimed at protecting IVF.
The legislation would have barred states from receiving Medicaid funding if they implemented a ban on IVF. But it wouldn’t stop a court from restricting the procedure and would have allowed states to pass laws restricting the disposal, storage and implantation of embryos.
That bill was blocked by Democrats.
