With their sights set on winning control of Congress in November, Senate Democrats are reviving a legislative effort to dramatically expand access to in vitro fertilization. The move comes nearly two years after President Donald Trump pledged that he would make the procedure free to Americans if re-elected — a campaign promise he has yet to fulfill.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., on Thursday is set to reintroduce her Right to IVF Act, a package of four bills that would dramatically expand access to the procedure and insurance coverage. Revival of the legislation, which MS NOW is first to report, comes two years after Senate Republicans derailed the bill’s passage, arguing it was unnecessary because IVF was already widely available.
But now that Trump is back in the White House — and retaking power over the legislative branch is within their reach — Senate Democrats are hoping they can pressure their Republican colleagues into making the president’s 2024 campaign promise a reality. And if that fails, Democrats will at the very least remind Americans where the GOP stands on a broadly popular reproductive health issue as Election Day nears.
“From middle class families, to our brave service members and Veterans, to federal employees and more — every American deserves the right to access the treatment and tools they need to build the family of their dreams without burning through their savings,” Duckworth said in a statement to MS NOW. “If Republicans really support IVF, then let’s get this done.”
The legislative package is co-sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
The four bills would establish a nationwide right to IVF access, pre-empting state laws that could imperil it, and mandate insurance coverage for IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies for federal employees. It would also expand IVF access to all veterans and service members — currently, the procedure is only available to those who can prove their duties in the line of service caused their infertility — and broaden employer-sponsored and state insurance coverage of IVF. Of the more than two dozen states that currently mandate insurance coverage for infertility treatments, only 15 specifically require coverage of IVF, according to Resolve, an infertility advocacy organization.
“For millions of American families, IVF isn’t politics — it’s hope,” Schumer said in a statement to MS NOW. “Donald Trump ran on a promise that he would make IVF free, and yet he has done nothing but attack women’s reproductive rights and undermine access to fertility care — another lie in his long list of broken promises to American families.”
Despite broad support for IVF, it has increasingly become a hot-button political issue in recent years. Abortion opponents have successfully lobbied GOP lawmakers to oppose expanding access to the procedure, since it typically involves discarding unused embryos. Last month, the Texas Republican Party adopted a platform at its convention characterizing IVF as a “destructive” procedure to fetal life. And the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank that authored Project 2025, has argued for treating the “root causes” of infertility through a practice called restorative reproductive medicine, which IVF advocates say lacks scientific evidence.
The mounting threats to IVF became apparent when the Alabama Supreme Court recognized frozen embryos as legal persons in a 2024 ruling, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade. As a result, some IVF clinics in the state temporarily paused operations, sparking nationwide concerns about how abortion restrictions could imperil access to fertility procedures. (The Alabama legislature subsequently passed a law protecting IVF access and provision in the state, and it remains available.)
Democrats argued the debacle was a harbinger of how healthcare would be negatively affected by mounting abortion restrictions. Trump, meanwhile, promised that if re-elected, he would force insurance companies, or the government, to pay for IVF treatments — a move experts said would cost nearly $8 billion annually.
The president has not done that, instead announcing a plan in October — after months of delays — to slash prices for a critical IVF drug and create a new fertility insurance benefit that employers could voluntarily offer. The Trump administration subsequently issued guidance on the proposed benefit, but no regulation has been finalized.
“President Trump promised the whole enchilada of access to IVF care. He has delivered a slice of jalapeno pepper on the top,” Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, told MS NOW on Wednesday. (Lawmakers worked with ASRM on the Right to IVF Act, according to Tipton and a spokesperson for Duckworth.)
Duckworth, who has been outspoken about having her two daughters through IVF, and other Democrats have been working to remind Americans that Trump and his Republican allies have fallen short of the president’s promise.
Several lawmakers lambasted House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in December for working behind the scenes to strip a provision from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have mandated coverage of IVF for service members, as MS NOW first reported. Johnson has said he supports IVF but does not believe Congress should legislate it. In May, more than a dozen Democratic senators demanded the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Andrea Lucas, abandon her stated plans to roll back protections for workers seeking fertility treatments.
Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., who also had two children through IVF, will introduce a House companion bill to Duckworth’s Right to IVF Act this week, accompanied by Reps. James Walkinshaw, D-Va.; Rick Larsen, D-Wash.; Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.; and Laura Gillen, D-N.Y., according to a spokesperson for Duckworth.
Reps. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla., reintroduced a bill in March that would mandate insurance coverage for infertility and IVF treatments, but it has yet to make it out of committee and lacks a Senate companion bill.
Tipton said he is hopeful the latest legislative push gains momentum — if not in this session of Congress, then in the next.
“It’s clear that access to reproductive services, including fertility care, is under threat all over the country,” he said. “And so we think it’s important that Congress act to protect that access.”
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