A Democratic-led bill to protect access to in vitro fertilization failed in the Senate on Thursday under the weight of Republican opposition.
The result was expected, but it marked the latest instance of Democrats honing in on an election-year agenda they hope will ding Republicans at the ballot box, which the GOP has dubbed the “summer of scare tactics.”
“Protecting IVF should be the easiest ‘yes’ vote the Senate has taken all year,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. “Republicans cannot say they are pro-family and then vote against protecting IVF.”
The tally was 48-47, mostly along party lines and falling well short of the required 60 votes needed to break a filibuster and advance the legislation.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) were the lone Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with Democrats. Schumer ultimately changed his vote to no, a procedural tactic that allows him the option to more quickly reconsider the bill in the future.
Previous votes in recent weeks on Democratic-led measures for contraception and immigration suffered similar fates.
The IVF proposal sought to enshrine a right to the fertility procedure into federal law and comes around the two-year anniversary of the overturning of Roe, as well as on the heels of the Alabama Supreme Court putting access into jeopardy by ruling frozen embryos should be considered children.
As further evidence that IVF was under threat, Schumer pointed to the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, on Wednesday voting to oppose IVF over the common practice of discarding fertilized eggs.
The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America advocacy group lobbied against Democrats’ IVF bill and assailed it for assisting “reproductive technologies with no respect for created embryos or safeguards to protect couples.”
“This bill is a solution in search of a problem — fertility treatments are widely available and there are no serious efforts to curb thoughtful care for those experiencing infertility,” Susan B. Anthony President Marjorie Dannenfelser said. “Instead of serious legislation that balances complex issues, this is a free-for-all for the fertility industry.”
Republicans opposed the bill over religious liberty concerns and tried, unsuccessfully, to pass their own scaled-back version on Wednesday by unanimous consent.
“We’re the ones that want to protect IVF,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), one of the GOP bill’s co-authors, said on the Senate floor. “Understand we could have passed strong federal legislation today, but Senate Democrats don’t want a protection of IVF. They want a campaign issue.”
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Schumer denied such accusations.
“This is not a show vote,” he said. “This is a show-us-who-you-are vote.”
