Senate Republicans block unrestricted IVF insurance mandate but still back other IVF bills

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 17, 2024 / 16:50 pm

Senate Republicans blocked a bill on Tuesday that would have forced insurance companies to cover in vitro fertilization (IVF) and would have created an unrestricted right to the procedure — yet many in the party continue to support other efforts to expand IVF.

Under the proposal, employers — including religious employers — would have been forced to provide health insurance plans that cover IVF. The bill would have banned states from passing laws that limit the destruction of human embryonic life caused by the IVF industry. It would have also prevented states from limiting IVF to married couples.

The Senate fell several votes short of the three-fifths majority needed to end debate on the bill Tuesday afternoon after only two Republicans — Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins — joined Democrats on the procedural vote.

“The partisan Democrat bill … deliberately overturns the conscience protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said in opposition to the bill prior to the vote.

“It is unfortunate that Democrats have abandoned what used to be a bipartisan commitment to religious liberty and they are now more than willing to overturn religious liberty protections,” Cruz said. 

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, would have required that all individual and group health insurance plans that offer childbirth coverage also provide coverage for IVF. The bill did not include any exemptions for insurance plans provided by employers who have religious or other moral objections to IVF, such as the Catholic Church.

IVF is a fertility treatment opposed by the Catholic Church in which doctors fuse sperm and eggs to create human embryos and implant them in the mother’s womb, which deviates from the natural procreative process. To maximize efficiency, doctors create excess human embryos and routinely destroy undesired embryos.

More than 1 million human embryos are either killed or indefinitely frozen every year in the United States by the IVF industry.

The proposed law would have prevented states from putting restrictions on the destruction of human embryonic life. It would have also banned states from restricting the number of eggs doctors could retrieve from the woman, from preventing the fertilization of multiple human eggs, or from limiting the number of human embryos created to be frozen for future use.

Only one state — Louisiana — prohibits the destruction of human embryonic life. However, the state law does not prevent doctors from transporting embryos to another state where they can be killed.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said during the floor debate that the destruction of human embryos is “a common necessary part of the IVF process.”

“Talk to the experts who provide this care,” Murray said. “Talk to the families who are seeking it and that question looms large in their minds. What are we supposed to do if our state says these [human] embryos are living, breathing people?”

The proposed legislation would have also prohibited states from limiting IVF access to couples who are married. It would have required that the procedure be available to single people and to homosexuals. Under the bill, states would not be allowed to ensure that the children who are ultimately born through IVF grow up in a home with both a mother and a father.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out strongly against the legislation, saying that the solution to infertility “can never be a medical process that involves the creation of countless preborn children and results in most of them being frozen or discarded and destroyed.”

Republicans seek IVF expansion in other ways

Although Republican senators blocked the IVF insurance mandate, lawmakers within the party urged Democrats to consider legislation that would grant national protections to IVF without any mandates on employers.

Republican Sen. Katie Britt and Cruz encouraged lawmakers to adopt their bill, which would have stripped Medicaid funding from states if they prohibit IVF. There are no states that prohibit IVF.

The proposal does not impose any mandates on employers or health insurance companies and would not prevent states from regulating IVF.

“IVF helps aspiring parents to start families, to grow their families,” Britt asserted on the Senate floor. 

Cruz said he is “an unequivocal supporter of protecting IVF,” which he argued “has given so many parents struggling with infertility the gift of finally holding a child — a baby in their arms.”

Democrats objected to the legislation. Murray said the “bill does nothing to meaningfully protect IVF” because it does not prevent states from approving the regulations that are prohibited in the Democrats’ bill.

Even though the destruction of human embryonic life is integral to the IVF process, many of the Republicans who embrace the procedure still refer to themselves as pro-life.