WASHINGTON — The Senate is set to vote on a bill Tuesday to protect access to in vitro fertilization, with Democrats seeking to draw attention to Republican positions on the issue after former President Donald Trump made comments in support of the fertility treatment.
of packageThe legislation, called the IVF Rights Act, focuses on the right to receive and provide IVF services and aims to make the treatment more affordable. Blocked It was proposed by Senate Republicans just three months ago.
Now, with less than 50 days until Election Day, Democrats are challenging Republicans to reconsider their vote.
“If Donald Trump and the Republican Party want to protect people’s right to IVF, they can just vote for it,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who introduced the bill, told CBS News in an interview. “Trump has shown that he only has to say the word and the Republican Party will follow.”
The issue was decided by the Alabama Supreme Court earlier this year. The fetus is a child Under state law, IVF is prohibited as a fertility treatment in the state, and medical providers have suspended fertility treatments in the state. Since then, a number of Republicans have voiced support for the popular fertility treatment, including Trump during last week’s presidential debate, amid growing concerns about access to IVF in Alabama and beyond.
Democrats have sought to link IVF to reproductive rights more broadly, arguing that the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade paves the way for restrictions on other procedures.
“From the moment the MAGA Supreme Court overturned Roe, as President Donald Trump promised, Democrats warned that the far-right would not stop at taking away reproductive freedom,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote to colleagues on Sunday, adding that “IVF has become one of the far-right’s next targets.”
The New York Democrat said he expects the Senate to vote on the bill again because President Trump has recently pledged his support for the issue, including requiring insurance companies to pay claims. IVF ServicesThat’s a provision that was also included in the Democratic-led bill, which all but two Senate Republicans voted against in June.
“So we will give our Republican colleagues another opportunity to show the American people where they stand,” Schumer wrote.
Senate Republicans have repeatedly voiced their support for IVF while arguing that the Democratic bill goes too far. And when two GOP senators introduced their own bill to protect access to IVF in May, Democrats quickly rejected it, questioning the bill’s scope and the enforcement mechanisms that make continued access to IVF a condition for states to receive federal Medicaid funds.
The two camps are still bipartisan. The way forward The debate continues on this issue as the IVF bill heads to a vote on Tuesday that is likely to be defeated once again.
President Trump has come under pressure from many quarters in recent months. Reproductive RightsThe president often brags about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, but he also said he believes abortion should now be left to the states. And while he claims to be a “fertility leader,” his recent comments in support of expanding access to IVF have drawn criticism from conservatives who oppose the procedure.
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