WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would protect access to in vitro fertilization, objecting to a vote on the issue on Wednesday even after widespread backlash over a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that threatens the practice.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican from Mississippi, objected to a request for the vote by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who used IVF treatments to have her two children after struggling with infertility for years. Duckworth’s bill would establish a federal right to the treatments as the Alabama ruling has upended fertility care in the state, leaving families who had already begun the process with heartbreak and uncertainty.
Several clinics in the state have announced they are suspending IVF services as they work through last week’s ruling, which said frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. The court said three Alabama couples who lost frozen embryos in an accident at a storage facility could sue the fertility clinic and hospital for the wrongful death of a minor child.
Democrats immediately echoed the election-year ruling, warning that other states could follow Alabama’s lead and that other rights could also be at risk in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and overturning the federal right to abortion. in 2022. Congress passed similar legislation in 2022 that would protect the federal right to same-sex and interracial marriages.
“Mark my words: If we don’t act now, things will only get worse,” Duckworth said.
Opponents of abortion have introduced laws in at least 15 states based on the idea that a fetus should have the same rights as a human being.
Hyde-Smith defended the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision finding that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. She pointed out that it stemmed from a pair of wrongful death cases brought on by three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic.
“I support the opportunity for mothers and fathers to have full access to IVF and bring new life into the world. I also believe that human life must be protected,” Hyde-Smith said.
At the same time, three providers in Alabama have halted commonly used fertility treatments while they figure out the legal implications. Alabama lawmakers are trying to find ways to protect the treatments. And former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, said he would “strongly support the availability of IVF.” Trump called on Alabama lawmakers to maintain access to the treatment.
Many GOP lawmakers have also strengthened their support for IVF services.
Shortly after the decision, Senator Katie Britt of Alabama called fellow Republicans, including Trump, to argue for the importance of supporting the treatments, emphasizing that they are pro-life and pro-family, according to a person familiar with the matter. with the calls.
In a statement after the ruling, Britt said that “defending life and ensuring continued access to IVF services for loving parents are not mutually exclusive.”
Other Republicans agreed. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, one of the most vocal opponents of abortion in the Senate, said he supports IVF and believes it is “completely life-affirming.” Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, a former obstetrician, said he had been referring patients for IVF treatments in his practice for 25 years. “We are the pro-family party, and there is nothing more pro-family than helping couples have a baby,” Marshall said.
Still, this is the second time Republicans have blocked Duckworth’s bill. By bringing it up again, Democrats said they are challenging Republican senators to show real support for IVF access after many issued statements this week criticizing the Alabama ruling. Democrats held the floor of the Senate for 45 minutes on Wednesday with a series of speeches mocking the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Republicans who denounced the Alabama ruling are “like the arsonist who sets a house on fire and says, why is it on fire?”
For Duckworth, the bill has deep personal meaning. After being seriously injured while piloting a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq, she became an amputee and was only able to have her own children, ages 5 and 9, through IVF.
“After a decade of struggling with infertility after serving in Iraq, I was only able to conceive through the miracle of IVF,” Duckworth said on the Senate floor. “IVF is the reason I get to experience the chaos and the beauty, the stress and the joy, that is motherhood.”
She called her infertility “one of the most heartbreaking problems of my life. My miscarriage is more painful than any wound I ever received on the battlefield.”
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Associated Press writer Kim Chandler contributed from Montgomery, Ala.