Senate Republicans again block legislation to guarantee women's rights to IVF

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans have blocked for a second time this year legislation to establish a nationwide right to in vitro fertilization, arguing that the vote is an election-year stunt after Democrats forced a vote on the issue.

The Senate vote was Democrats’ latest attempt to force Republicans into a defensive stance on women’s health issues and highlight policy differences between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in the presidential race, especially as Trump has called himself a “ leader on IVF.”

The 51-44 vote was short of the 60 votes needed to move forward on the bill, with only two Republicans voting in favor. Democrats say Republicans who insist they support IVF are being hypocritical because they won't support legislation guaranteeing a right to it.

“They say they support IVF — here you go, vote on this,” said Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the bill's lead sponsor and a military veteran who has used the fertility treatment to have her two children.

The Democratic push started earlier this year after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Several clinics in the state suspended IVF treatments until the GOP-led legislature rushed to enact a law to provide legal protections for the clinics.

Democrats quickly capitalized, holding a vote in June on Duckworth's bill and warning that the U.S. Supreme Court could go after the procedure next after it overturned the right to an abortion in 2022.

The bill would establish a nationwide right for patients to access IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies and a right for doctors and insurance companies to provide it, an effort to pre-empt state efforts to limit the services. It would also require more health insurers to cover it and expand coverage for military service members and veterans.

In a statement after the vote, Harris said Republicans in Congress “have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.”

Republican vice presidential candidate and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who missed the vote because he was campaigning, said during a stop in Wisconsin that the measure was not a serious IVF bill, but a measure designed to make Republicans look bad.

“The Senate blocked a ridiculous showboat bill that had no chance of passing,” Vance said.

Republicans argued that the federal government shouldn’t tell states what to do and that the bill was an unserious effort. Only Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted with Democrats to move forward on the bill both times.

Meanwhile, Republicans have scrambled to counter Democrats on the issue, with many making clear that they support IVF treatments. Trump last month announced plans, without additional details, to require health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the fertility treatment.

In his debate with Harris earlier this month, Trump said he was a “leader” on the issue and talked about the “very negative” decision by the Alabama court that was later reversed by the legislature.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said that Democrats are trying to create a political issue “where there isn't one.”

“Let me remind everybody that Republicans support IVF, full stop,” Thune said just before the vote.

The issue has threatened to become a vulnerability for Republicans as some state laws passed by their party grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process. Ahead of its convention this summer, the Republican Party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law to all American citizens. The platform also encourages supporting IVF but does not explain how the party plans to do so.

Republicans have tried to push alternatives on the issue, including legislation that would discourage states from enacting explicit bans on the treatment, but those bills have been blocked by Democrats who say they are not enough.

Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, said in a floor speech then that his daughter was currently receiving IVF treatment and proposed to expand the flexibility of health savings accounts. Republican Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama and Ted Cruz of Texas have tried to pass a bill that would threaten to withhold Medicaid funding for states where IVF is banned.

Cruz, who is running for reelection in Texas, said Democrats were holding the vote to “stoke baseless fears about IVF and push their broader political agenda.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, center, accompanied by Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ., left, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., center-right, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., right, speaks about the need to protect rights to in vitro fertilization (IVF), on the Senate steps at Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, left, accompanied by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., right, speaks about the need to protect rights to in vitro fertilization (IVF), on the Senate steps at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Front row, left to right, Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., pose for a photograph after speaking about the need to protect rights to in vitro fertilization (IVF), on the Senate steps at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., center, accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, left, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., right, speaks about the need to protect rights to in vitro fertilization (IVF), on the Senate steps at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

FILE - The Capitol is seen from the Russell Senate Office Building as Congress returns from a district work week, in Washington, March 24, 2014. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — A government lawyer asked a federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday to move the legal fight over the detention of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil to New Jersey or Louisiana, where he's being held as the Trump administration seeks to deport him over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests at the school.

Immigration enforcement agents arrested Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident who is married to an American citizen, in New York on Saturday. He was later moved to an immigration detention center in Louisiana.

After Khalil's arrest, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ordered that the 30-year-old not be deported while the court considers a legal challenge brought by his lawyers, who are seeking to have Khalil returned to New York and released under supervision. They argue that he engaged in protected free speech and that the government is illegally retaliating against him over it.

During a brief hearing Wednesday, Department of Justice attorney Brandon Waterman asked for the change of venue to Louisiana or New Jersey, where he was held before being sent south.

Furman asked the government to file written arguments by Friday, with a response due on Monday.

Columbia University became the center of a U.S. pro-Palestinian protest movement that swept across college campuses nationwide last year and led to more than 2,000 arrests.

President Donald Trump heralded Khalil’s arrest as the first “of many to come,” vowing on social media to deport students he described as engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”

During a stopover in Ireland while headed from Saudi Arabia to a meeting of the G7 foreign ministers in Canada, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Khalil's case is “not about free speech.”

"This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card," Rubio said.

Khalil, who acted as a spokesperson for Columbia protesters, has not been charged with a crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the administration moved to deport him under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state the power to deport a noncitizen on foreign policy grounds.

Civil rights groups and Khalil’s attorneys say the government is unconstitutionally using its immigration control powers to stop him from speaking out.

Khalil's detention has sparked protests in New York City and other cities. On Tuesday, a man was arrested and 11 other people were given summonses for alleged disorderly conduct during a demonstration near Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan, police said.

Khalil, whose wife is pregnant with their first child, finished his requirements for a Columbia master’s degree in December. Born in Syria, he is a grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a legal filing.

U.S. Jewish groups and leaders and organizations have been divided in their response to Khalili’s detention.

Among those welcoming the move was the Anti-Defamation League, which said it hopes it serves as a “deterrent.”

“We appreciate the Trump Administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism — and this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions,” the ADL said on social media.

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs, decried Khalil's detention.

The Trump administration “is exploiting real concerns about antisemitism to undercut democracy: from gutting education funding to deporting students to attacking diversity, equity, & inclusion,” she wrote on Bluesky. “As we’ve repeatedly said: this makes Jews — & so many others — less safe.”

Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee in Shannon, Ireland, and David Crary in New York contributed.

Protesters march on campus against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at UC Berkeley on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Protesters march on campus against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at UC Berkeley on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Protesters march on campus against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at UC Berkeley on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Protesters hold Palestinian flag during a demonstration outside Manhattan Federal Court in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, Monday, March 10, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Protesters demonstrate in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil at Washington Square Park, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

FILE - Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is on the Columbia University campus in New York at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, file)