As Republicans once again blocked protections for IVF access today, DNC National Press Secretary Emilia Rowland released the following statement:

“Senate Republicans put politics first and families last again today by blocking the Right to IVF Act for the second time since June. As Trump makes baseless claims about being “a leader on fertilization,” the reality is that his Project 2025 agenda and the Republican Party platform directly threaten IVF. Voters know the difference between words and actions, and between now and November, they will turn out against Republicans from the top to bottom of the ballot for siding with Trump’s Project 2025 plans to take his abortion bans nationwide that have already cost millions of Americans their rights and in some tragic cases, even their lives.”

🚨MAGA Senate Republicans ONCE AGAIN blocked a bill to nationally enshrine Americans’ freedom to start a family through IVF. 

NBC News: “For the second time in four months, Senate Democrats forced a vote on the Right To IVF Act, only to be blocked by Republicans who called it unnecessary and politically motivated as Vice President Kamala Harris seeks to make access to in vitro fertilization a 2024 campaign issue.”

Burgess Everett, Semafor: “For a second time this year, Senate Republicans vote down Sen. Duckworth’s IVF bill. The vote was 51-44 and needed 60.”

This is the second time since June that GOP senators voted to block Democrats’ legislation to enshrine access to IVF into law. 

Associated Press: “Senate Republicans block bill on women’s right to IVF as Democrats make push on reproductive care”

“Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would make it a right nationwide for women to access in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer forced a vote on the matter Thursday in an effort to drive an election-year contrast on reproductive care.”

Trump’s running mate JD Vance couldn’t even bother to show up, but we know where he stands – he voted against this legislation in August. 

The Independent: “IVF is supposedly key to Trump’s campaign. JD Vance didn’t even show up to vote on it”

The Hill: “Senate Republicans block legislation to codify IVF access”

Republicans who voted against include: JD Vance.

Vanity Fair: “On Wednesday, Senate Republicans are expected to object to Tammy Duckworth’s Right to Build Families Act, because, surprise: They don’t actually care about families and aren’t ‘pro-life.’

“‘It’s idiotic for us to take the bait,’ Senator J.D. Vance told Politico, as though the measure were some kind of political trap. (He also noted that he had not actually read the bill yet.)”

Trump’s Republican Party platform AND Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 agenda both include explicit language advocating for “fetal personhood” — a legal concept that directly threatens IVF.

Slate: “The [Republican] platform pairs its commitment to states’ rights with a nod to fetal personhood, a legal concept that would—as the modern anti-abortion movement understands it—render laws protecting abortion rights, even ballot initiatives, unconstitutional. Most contemporary anti-abortion advocates, including the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, argue that the recognition of fetal personhood would require limits on or even bans of IVF.”

The 19th: “RNC approves platform that would give rights to fetuses, endangering abortion, IVF” 

“Fetal personhood is widely seen as being in conflict with in vitro fertilization (IVF), which creates embryos outside of the uterus that are later implanted. Fetal personhood bestows the same rights currently reserved for people to embryos from the moment of fertilization.”

Media Matters: “The Heritage Foundation quietly released draconian new IVF policy recommendations for the next GOP president”

“The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank organizing the plan for a conservative overhaul of the federal government known as Project 2025, recently published another blog critical of in vitro fertilization procedures, this one with a list of specific policy recommendations for limiting access to the reproductive method. 

“Heritage has been a staunchly anti-IVF voice, supporting Alabama’s controversial Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos cultivated through IVF treatment have the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying embryos.”

Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 450: “From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity and worth, and our humanity does not depend on our age, stage of development, race, or abilities.”

The Nation: “And by declaring that life begins at conception, his [Project 2025] manifesto appears to commit HHS to finding ways to outlaw IVF, which relies on generating multiple embryos, most of which are not implanted.”

Thanks to his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, Trump has paved the way for states’ cruel abortion bans and attacks on IVF.  

HuffPost: “Donald Trump Has Deep Ties To Anti-IVF Movement”

“Like many Republicans, Trump’s words of support don’t align with his past actions on IVF. The current Republican presidential nominee ― who has repeatedly bragged about his role in repealing federal abortion protections ― has deep ties to extreme right-wing organizations that actively oppose IVF.

“While in the White House, Trump and his administration praised, appointed and worked with some of the nation’s most extreme thought leaders who believe the IVF process is akin to murder. Trump hosted the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who wrote the IVF ruling twice: once during his 2016 campaign and in 2018 at the White House. (This is the same chief justice who recently appeared on a QAnon conspiracist’s show.)”

New York Times: “[The Alabama Supreme Court ruling on IVF was] made possible by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in its 2022 Dobbs decision, which was a result of Mr. Trump’s appointment of three justices.”

MSNBC [Opinion]: “Alabama’s embryos ruling is a terrifying preview of another Trump presidency”

“Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos frozen in in vitro fertilization procedures are ‘children’ under state law, and that a person responsible for their destruction can be held liable…

“This theocratic dystopia is not an outlier, confined to a single state, but rather a roadmap should Donald Trump return to the White House.”

Washington Post: “Texas high court declines to decide if embryos are people or property”

CNN: “How the reversal of Roe v. Wade led to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children”

FACT: The majority of Americans overwhelmingly reject the Trump-Vance agenda to rip away women’s freedoms and threaten access to IVF. 

ABC News: “Americans continue to support IVF and abortion access”

“The vast majority of registered voters, 80 percent, think IVF should be legal.”

Navigator Research: “Large majorities say reproductive care like birth control pills and IVF should be made easier to access, including majorities of Republicans. … Americans across party lines also say access to fertility planning like IVF should be easier to access, including 72 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.”