Senate Democrats introduce legislative protections for IVF

WASHINGTON — A group of Senate Democrats is announcing a legislative package to protect in vitro fertilization Monday, an election-year push to put reproductive rights at center stage.

The Right to IVF Act, led by Sens. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Patty Murray of Washington and Cory Booker of New Jersey, includes four bills to preserve access toIVF and make it more affordable to get the procedure, which has helped millions of families have children. The four bills, which had been introduced previously, are the Access to Family Building Act, the Veteran Families Health Services Act, the Access to Infertility Treatment and Care Act and the Family Building FEHB Fairness Act (FEHB stands for Federal Employees Health Benefit).

“In the nearly two years since the Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade, our nation has seen the horrific consequences of Republicans’ anti-science, anti-woman crusade that has put IVF at risk for millions of Americans who rely on it to start or grow their family,” Duckworth said in a statement.

Duckworth, who used IVF to have her two daughters, said that “struggling with infertility is painful enough — every American deserves the right to access the treatment.”

The legislation would establish a statutory right for patients to access IVF, protect providers from legal liability, ensure service members and veterans have access to the procedure and require more health insurers to cover fertility care.

“Republican attacks on reproductive rights since the Dobbs decision have not stopped at abortion—their reckless crusade to criminalize basic reproductive health care and give embryos the exact same rights as living, breathing human beings has put IVF in jeopardy and endangered the lives of pregnant women,”