Iowa’s U.S. senators voted against a procedural measure to advance a bill to protect and expand nationwide access to fertility treatment. This includes in vitro fertilization, also known as IVF. Tuesday’s vote marks the second time in three months U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill protecting IVF services.
The legislation would guarantee federal protections and private insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization treatments. IVF and reproductive health care continue to be campaign issues in battleground districts, including Iowa’s 1st Congressional District.
Iowa’s Republican U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted against the bill, along with all but two Republicans present. Ohio U.S. Sen. and vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who voted to block the legislation in June, was absent for the Tuesday vote. The bill fell on party lines, and Democrats were left short of the 60 necessary votes to begin debating it.
Grassley said in a statement to The Daily Iowan that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, made IVF a political pawn.
Schumer brought The Right To IVF Act up for a vote in June to put the GOP in political turmoil and force a vote to protect IVF.
“Despite Democrat fear mongering, IVF access is not in jeopardy,” Grassley said in the statement. “It’s legal in all 50 states, and all Senate Republicans support nationwide access, including me. I’m proudly pro-life, pro-family, and pro-mother.”
Ernst echoed Grassley in a statement to The Daily Iowan, and said Democrats are misleading Americans about IVF during an election year.
“I strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF, which has allowed millions of aspiring parents to start and grow their families,” Ernst said.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said in a news release Tuesday that Grassley’s and Ernst’s votes showed they are unwilling to create exceptions to existing abortion laws brought by Republican-led states to protect IVF.
RELATED: Miller-Meeks introduces refundable tax credit for IVF
“Republicans keep playing dangerous political games with healthcare policies that literally decide whether Iowans can start a family,” Hart said in the news release.
Voting against the bill, Republicans broke with former President Donald Trump. Trump called himself a leader on the issue of IVF and said he supported requiring insurance companies or the federal government to cover treatment costs.
Grassley’s and Ernst’s nay votes on IVF come a week after U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, introduced a refundable tax credit for the treatments. Miller-Meeks’ proposal promoted access to IVF through a fully refundable tax credit up to $30,000.
U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa and 13 other House Republicans co-sponsored the bill, which the Iowa Democratic Party criticized as doing nothing to support IVF, according to a news release Tuesday.
In the last legislative session, Iowa House Republicans advanced a bill to define an “unborn person” and increase jail time for another person ending a pregnancy without the pregnant person’s consent. Iowa Democrats worried the bill would risk IVF services in the state.
Spokespeople for The FAMiLY Leader, a conservative pro-life group, previously said the organization will pursue a life-at-conception bill in the upcoming legislative session.
States with life-at-conception laws, including Alabama, have experienced issues with the law’s effects on the ability to provide IVF services.
Hart said Iowa Democrats are pushing to place new leaders in Congress, such as Christina Bohannan and Lanon Baccam, to stop the Republican agenda and restore women’s rights to make their own medical decisions.
Bohannan is running against Miller-Meeks in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, and Baccam challenges Nunn to represent Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District.