02.28.24

Senate Republicans Block Cantwell-Sponsored Bill to Secure Access to IVF Nationwide

Cantwell: Recent Alabama IVF ruling is “next front of the anti-choice crusade”; Cantwell previously released a snapshot revealing impacts of the Dobbs decision on PNW’s abortion providers

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senate Republicans blocked the Access to Family Building Act, which would protect access to assisted reproductive services like in vitro fertilization (IVF) under federal law. U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is a cosponsor of the bill.

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are considered children, causing a chilling effect on IVF clinics and the patients depending on them throughout the state. Several IVF clinics in Alabama have already stopped offering IVF out of fear of being prosecuted.

"The shocking Alabama IVF ruling revealed the next front of the anti-choice crusade, attacking all forms of reproductive health care, not just abortion,” said Sen. Cantwell. “Today, our Republican colleagues chose to block legislation that would allow millions of Americans to continue to use IVF to help expand their families. These personal medical decisions belong to families, not the government.”

IVF, the main type of assisted reproductive technology, is a safe and proven procedure that has been in use for nearly a half century. Nearly 2% of all babies born in the U.S. are born as a result of IVF and more than 8 million babies have been born using this approach. An estimated 1 million frozen eggs and embryos are being stored across the U.S. right now.  The use of assisted reproductive technology in the U.S. has more than doubled over the past decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The proportion of live births in Washington state with the use of assisted reproductive technology, 2.6%, is greater than the national average, with 2,471 babies born in 2021 using assisted reproductive technology.  However, the anti-choice movement continues to aggressively target a broad range of reproductive care post-Dobbs, including fertility treatments like IVF. 

To address this, the Access to Family Building Act would establish an individual right under federal law to access reproductive technology like IVF. It would also protect a provider’s right to deliver these services and an insurer’s right to cover them. It would be enforced by the Department of Justice. Individual patients and providers would also be able to initiate civil lawsuits to protect their rights under the bill.

Ahead of the of the 51st anniversary of the since-reversed U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, in January Sen. Cantwell released a snapshot on the status of abortion providers and patients in the State of Washington since the Dobbs decision. The snapshot revealed a strained reproductive care delivery system in the State of Washington, with the number of abortions rising by 23% in 2022 and abortions for out-of-state patients surging by 46%, even as clinics struggle with staffing and harassment.

Earlier this year, Sen. Cantwell questioned a panel of abortion experts on the state of reproductive rights in America during a briefing with Senate Democrats ahead of the Roe anniversary. Her questioning focused on the burden that laws criminalizing abortion have placed on health care providers in states like Washington where abortion is still legal, and the need for federal protection from prosecution.

Currently, 21 states have total abortion bans or stringent restrictions in place, and in 2023, over 1,000 provisions to impose further limits on reproductive health care or roll back reproductive rights were introduced across the country. 

Since a leaked draft opinion indicated the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn the reproductive care precedent established under Roe, Sen. Cantwell has been focused on protecting abortion access and choice for women across the country. In March 2023, Sen. Cantwell joined U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) in reintroducing the Women’s Health Protection Act and hosting a roundtable discussion on the path forward to defend Americans’ reproductive rights. 

In April, Sen. Cantwell joined Sen. Murray and 25 other colleagues in reintroducing the Let Doctors Provide Reproductive Health Care Act, which would ban anti-choice states from restricting or preventing health care providers from performing abortions in states where abortion is legal.

In May, Sen. Cantwell joined 12 Senate colleagues in reintroducing the My Body, My Data Act to protect personal reproductive health data. 

Also in May, Sen. Cantwell joined 29 Senate colleagues to introduce the Protecting Service Members and Military Families’ Access to Health Care Act, legislation that would codify the Department of Defense’s policy to help service members and their families access non-covered reproductive health care – including abortion services – regardless of the state in which they are stationed. 

In June, Sen. Cantwell joined colleagues in reintroducing the Right to Contraception Act to codify the right to contraception access established by the Supreme Court ruling Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965. The same month, Sen. Cantwell cosponsored the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act to ban anti-choice states from penalizing or prosecuting health care providers that offer reproductive services in states where abortion care is legal.

In July, Sen. Cantwell joined 46 colleagues in writing to Secretary Becerra to urge HHS to adopt stronger privacy regulations for Americans’ protected health information, including a warrant requirement for the release of medical records in the reviewed Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rule regulation.  These protections are particularly important because 19 Republican attorneys general – including Idaho’s Raúl Labrador – sent a public comment to Secretary Becerra strongly opposing the Department of Health and Human Services’ revised HIPAA protections. If successful, their opposition would make it easier for officials in Idaho to investigate abortions performed in Washington state and prosecute patients and providers.  This is alarming in light of the findings in Sen. Cantwell’s snapshot report showing substantial and continuing increases in out-of-state abortion patients in Washington.

In December, Sen. Cantwell joined a resolution expressing support for the abortion medication mifepristone and calling for the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug to be respected. The resolution followed a U.S. Supreme Court announcement it will review a lower court ruling that would restrict access to mifepristone nationwide -- including in states like Washington that have expressly codified the right to an abortion into law.  In January, Sen. Cantwell joined 263 Members of Congress in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in that case, urging the reversal of a lower court ruling that would restrict access to mifepristone.  Sen. Cantwell has been actively tracking the litigation, which has significant ramifications for access to this medication, and joined colleagues to file amicus briefs at multiple stages in the litigation.  The Supreme Court will hear that case next month, on March 26.

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