Schumer dubs Dems' IVF vote a referendum on Republicans

WASHINGTON (CN) — As the Senate prepares to take another stab at a bill protecting in vitro fertilization procedures from state-level restrictions, the chamber’s top Democrat once again framed the forthcoming vote as an opportunity to get Republicans on the record on reproductive rights.

Lawmakers will take a sequel vote on the Right to IVF Act on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Sunday. The measure, which among other things would codify IVF access into federal law, failed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Senate over the summer.

It’s unclear whether the legislation has enough momentum to pass this time around — but Schumer suggested that holding another vote was just as much an effort to paint Republicans into a corner on IVF and reproductive freedoms in the months before a presidential election.

“We all know someone who struggled to start or grow their family, so it’s hard to believe that Republicans would stand in the way of the Senate taking action to ensure access to IVF isn’t ripped away from millions of Americans,” he told Democrats in a “dear colleague” letter published Sunday. “Senate Republicans can’t claim they are pro-family only to block protections to IVF.”

Schumer and other Democrats have argued for months that the GOP is eyeing more draconian restrictions on reproductive rights following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , which gutted the constitutional right to abortion laid out in Roe v. Wade .

Lawmakers have claimed that IVF, a procedure in which an embryo is created in a laboratory and then transferred to a patient, is next on the menu for conservatives. Democrats have repeatedly pointed to a February ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court, which made destroying frozen embryos used in IVF a crime, as a harbinger of such a crackdown.

“From the moment the MAGA Supreme Court reversed Roe as Donald Trump promised they would, Democrats warned that the hard-right would not stop there in eliminating reproductive freedoms,” Schumer wrote Sunday. “Over the past few months, our worst fears have been confirmed, as IVF has become one of the hard-right’s next targets.”

Many Republicans, however, have long contended that the party largely supports IVF, posing the procedure — which helps couples struggling to have children — as part of the GOP’s pro-family agenda.

Former President Donald Trump has called himself a “leader in fertilization,” and backed IVF during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last week. Republican lawmakers have also introduced their own legislation that would punish states that banned or limited the procedure.

But Schumer pointed out that Senate Republicans overwhelmingly voted to strike down the Right to IVF Act when Democrats brought it up in June. The measure failed 48-47, with lawmakers refusing to even bring it to the floor for debate.

“Tuesday’s vote will be a consequential moment in the national discussion on reproductive rights,” the Senate majority leader said. “The American people deserve another chance to see if Senate Republicans will back up their words and vote for access to IVF or vote against it. It’s that simple.”

If it becomes law, the Right to IVF Act would not only enshrine access to the treatment in federal law but would also expand access to the procedure by requiring certain insurance plans — and military health care packages — to cover IVF.

Reproductive rights have become a wedge issue in the run-up to November’s election, as Democrats contend that a second Trump administration would mean a national ban on abortion. The GOP candidate himself has argued that abortion restrictions should be left to the states, though he has so far refused to directly answer whether he would veto a national ban if such legislation crossed his desk.

Democrats have also sounded the alarm about other threats to reproductive health care, including contraception. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing in his 2022 opinion on the Dobbs case, suggested that the precedent set by the Supreme Court ruling could be used to relitigate other cases including Griswold v. Connecticut , which rejected government oversight of birth control.

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