This week, Democratic presidential nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris went after Republicans after members of the party in the Senate blocked a bill that would have created a right to in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures if made law.
Republicans had put forward their own, much more limited measure that would have withheld Medicaid funding from any state that places a ban on IVF. That measure was also unsuccessful.
“Congressional Republicans’ repeated refusal to protect access to IVF is not an isolated incident. Extremist so-called leaders have launched a full-on attack against reproductive freedom across our country,” said Harris in a prepared statement.
“Their opposition to a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body is extreme, dangerous, and wrong. Our administration will always fight to protect reproductive freedoms, which must include access to IVF. We stand with the majority of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – who support protecting access to fertility treatments,” the VP added on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, which until its undoing had provided decades of national, legal protections for abortion across the United States. In its absence, legislators were given the opportunity to pursue their own abortion agendas in state after state, and many Americans now live under far-reaching restrictions on reproductive health care. Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump stands consistently by the reversal of Roe, which was undertaken with three of his nominees for that high court on the bench. He even characterizes the reversal as a widely favored move, which accounts show isn’t accurate.
