Despite backing from former President Donald Trump, a bill aimed at expanding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) failed in the U.S. Senate after being blocked by Republican opposition.
Tuesday's vote by Republicans against a Senate plan that sought to increase insurance coverage for fertility treatments and enshrine federal protections came days after advocates were taken aback by Donald Trump's unexpected endorsement of the measure.
After being opposed by the majority of Republicans for the second time, the plan lost 51–44, falling short of the necessary 60 votes. The parliament is ruled by Democrats by a narrow 51-49 margin.
Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat, is the bill's sponsor.
She tried to hold a vote on the same bill in late February, following the Alabama Supreme Court's decision that embryos used in in vitro fertilisation, or IVF, should be treated like children. This decision put millions of Americans' access to this treatment at risk.
"The freedom to get reproductive care is at risk for millions of other women whose most desperate hope in the world is to have a little one of their own," Duckworth, who had her two daughters via fertility treatments, said on a Senate floor speech after Tuesday's vote.
She added, "Republicans only seem to care about protecting life when it supposedly consists of some cells in a medical lab freezer."
Notably, some conservative Republicans who oppose in vitro fertilisation were taken aback when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared in August that, should he win, the government or insurance companies would have to foot the bill for the procedure.
