Senate Democrats to force a vote on bill to protect IVF access
Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Tuesday they will try to force a vote on their legislation to protect access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment in response to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are considered people.
Duckworth said during a press conference she will ask for unanimous consent Wednesday for the Senate to pass the bill, which would establish a federal right to IVF and other fertility treatments that are at risk in the post-Roe era. Duckworth's two children were conceived through IVF.
“I warned that red states would come for IVF, and now they have. But they aren't going to just going to stop in Alabama,” Duckworth said. “Mark my words: If we don't act now, it will only get worse.”
Duckworth and Murray’s bill was first introduced in 2022 and then reintroduced last month. It would guarantee a right to IVF as it is currently practiced, no matter which state a person lives in.
Duckworth tried to call for unanimous consent to pass the bill in 2022, but Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) blocked it without explanation. Under unanimous consent, any single senator can object to moving the bill forward.
“If you truly care about the sanctity of families, and you're genuinely actually honestly interested in protecting IVF, then you need to show it by not blocking this bill on the floor tomorrow. It's that simple,” Duckworth said.
The Alabama ruling criminalized the destruction of frozen embryos under the state’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor” law and led to multiple clinics in the state, including Alabama’s largest health system, pausing IVF operations for fear of legal repercussions.
After the ruling, many Republicans raced to distance themselves from it, saying they support IVF and fertility treatments. But a key practice in modern IVF treatments is to fertilize multiple embryos at once while only implanting one; it is routine practice to discard nonviable or excess embryos.
And many of the same Republicans have co-sponsored legislation that declares life begins at conception, without any exclusion for IVF.
Duckworth said 3 of the 5 embryos that were created during her treatments were deemed nonviable. Under “personhood” laws, discarding those embryos could be considered manslaughter or murder.
“It's been incredible to watch Republicans now scramble over the weekend to suddenly support IVF, while many of these same Republicans are literally right now co-sponsors of legislation that would enshrine fetal personhood,” Murray said. "You cannot support IVF and support fetal personhood laws. They are fundamentally incompatible. You are not fooling anyone.”
Passing the legislation under regular Senate rules could take weeks, and Murray, who leads the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Congress doesn’t have that kind of time. Government funding expires March 8, and congressional leaders don’t have an agreement on how to move forward.
“There is no reason to take hours on end, days on end to pass this legislation. And that's what it would take, because we know the same people who are going to block a [unanimous consent] are going to use every procedural move to not let it pass,” Murray said.
“If Republicans are now saying that they support IVF, don't block it tomorrow. Let it pass,” Murray said.