People attend a "Fight4Her" pro-choice rally in front of the White House at Lafayette Square on March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images)
We knew what would happen when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
We knew women would be denied access to abortion in many states, including here in Wisconsin. We knew patients would be forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to get care. We knew there would be people who would be forced to stay pregnant against their will. We knew doctors would be put in impossible positions, knowing they had the skill and knowledge to help their patients but fearing incarceration and the loss of their careers due to state laws.
In Wisconsin, abortion was suspended immediately after Roe was overturned due to an 1849 law that prosecutors threatened to use to ban abortion in the state. This forced 9 in 10 people to travel out of state for care, putting people’s health and lives at risk. Fortunately, 15 months later, after thousands of Wisconsin women were denied care, a Dane County judge ruled that Wisconsin’s pre-Roe statute does not ban abortion. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has resumed providing abortion care, but women’s health has suffered, confusion remains, and the threats to reproductive care and freedom continue in the Legislature, Congress and the courts.
Today, 21 states have banned abortion, and 29 million women and people across the gender spectrum who are of reproductive age are living under those bans. That number includes 44% of all women of reproductive age, and 55% of Black women.
And we knew women would die because of these bans. We didn’t know how many, or where, or who they would be. But now we have names. Two women — both Black women, both mothers — in Georgia died in 2022, in the first months without a federal constitutional right to abortion. According to Georgia’s Department of Public Health maternal mortality review committee, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died preventable deaths, as a direct result of Georgia’s abortion ban.
Women and families have been telling their stories everywhere anyone will pay attention — on social media, on national television, in local newspapers. They are telling the world that abortion is essential health care, that women, trans and nonbinary people are suffering under these bans. They’re reminding us that access to sexual and reproductive health care is not a luxury to be awarded to the few: it is essential if we call ourselves a free country.
The stories are piling up, some of them heartbreaking, some of them enraging, some of them achingly familiar to our own experiences or those of people we love. After all, one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime, which means weallknow someone who has had an abortion, whether they’ve shared that story or not.
And we know what will happen if politicians against reproductive freedom take power this election. We know because they’ve already shown us what they will do, and they continue to pursue additional restrictions on our freedom to access needed information and health care.
Our democracy and basic human rights are on the ballot in November. What we can do is vote.
We can elect leaders who will protect our right to make our own decisions about our bodies. Because there is no politician, of any party, who is more qualified, at any point in pregnancy, to make decisions about your pregnancy than you and your doctor.
And people know this. Nearly 80% of Americans believe the decision whether to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor, rather than regulated by law.
Every ballot cast in every election is a nudge toward a different future. Those nudges, taken together, determine the path our country will follow. The moral arc of the universe only bends toward justice and freedom if we all pull together.
So fight for the future you want, the future we all deserve. Vote for freedom.
Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks about access to in vitro fertilization on the steps of the Capitol building on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, along with other Senate Democrats holding photos of families who benefited from IVF. At right, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., holds a photo of Duckworth’s family that includes Duckworth’s children, born with the help of IVF. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).
WASHINGTON — The closely divided U.S. Senate gridlocked Tuesday over the best way to provide nationwide protections for in vitro fertilization, despite lawmakers from both political parties maintaining they want to do so.
Republicans voted against advancing a Democratic bill that could have prevented states from enacting “harmful or unwarranted limitations” on the procedure and bolstered access for military members and veterans. Two Republicans voted with Democrats — Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
Wisconsin’s Republican Sen. Ron Johnson voted against the measure and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin voted for it.
That came just a short time after Senate Democrats — who narrowly control the chamber — in a procedural move blocked a GOP bill from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama that would have barred Medicaid funding from going to any state that bans IVF.
The 51-44 vote that prevented Democrats’ legislation from moving toward a final vote followed numerous floor speeches and press conferences, including by the Harris-Walz presidential campaign, that sought to elevate the issue ahead of the November elections. The measure needed 60 votes to advance.
“This is a chance for my colleagues across the aisle to put their votes where their mouths have been,” said Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the bill’s sponsor and a mom of two children born as a result of IVF. “They say they support IVF. Here you go — vote on this.”
Duckworth said the legislation would provide critical IVF services to U.S. military members and veterans, many of whom experience infertility or experience difficulty having children due to their service.
“It allows our military men and women, prior to a deployment into a combat zone, to preserve and freeze their genetic material; so that should they come home with injuries that result in them becoming infertile, they will have already preserved their genetic material so that they can, themselves, start those beautiful families they wanted,” Duckworth said.
Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris released a written statement following the vote rebuking GOP senators for blocking the bill.
“Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom,” Harris wrote. “Yet, 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.”
Republicans blocked Democrats’ bill earlier this year. But Senate leadership scheduled another vote after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reignited the issue in August when he said his administration would mandate health insurance companies pay for IVF — a significant break with how the GOP has approached the issue.
“We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump said during an interview with NBC News. “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”
Alabama ruling
Democrats began speaking at length about preserving access to IVF earlier this year after the Alabama state Supreme Court issued an opinion in February that frozen embryos constitute children under state law.
That ruling forced all the state’s IVF clinics to halt their work until the state legislature passed a bill providing criminal and civil protections for those clinics.
Democrats have since argued that legislating the belief life begins at conception, which is championed by most conservative Republicans, is at odds with access to IVF, which typically freezes more embryos than would be implanted.
Those frozen embryos can be preserved or discarded, depending on the patient’s wishes, the clinic’s policies and state law. Some conservatives believe that discarding shouldn’t be legal or are opposed to the process altogether.
The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, voted earlier this year to oppose IVF, writing in a resolution that couples should consider adoption and that the process “engages in dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life.”
“We grieve alongside couples who have been diagnosed with infertility or are currently struggling to conceive, affirm their godly desire for children, and encourage them to consider the ethical implications of assisted reproductive technologies as they look to God for hope, grace, and wisdom amid suffering,” it stated.
Senate Democrats’ press for IVF protections has gone hand-in-hand with their efforts to bolster other reproductive rights, like access to birth control and abortion.
The issues could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the presidential election this November as well which political party controls the House and Senate.
Before the Senate held a vote on Democrats’ bill, Cruz asked for quick approval of an IVF bill he and Britt introduced earlier this year.
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray blocked his unanimous consent request.
During debate on that bill, Britt questioned why Democrats haven’t scheduled a recorded vote on her legislation, saying it could get the 60 votes needed to advance toward final passage.
“Today, we have an opportunity to act quickly and overwhelmingly to protect continued nationwide IVF access for loving American families,” Britt said. “Our bill is the only bill that protects IVF access while safeguarding religious liberty.”
The Britt-Cruz legislation has three co-sponsors, including Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker.
Murray said the Britt-Cruz bill didn’t address what would happen in states that legislate fetal personhood, which she called “the biggest threat to IVF.”
“It is silent on whether states can demand that an embryo be treated the same as a living, breathing person,” Murray said. “Or whether parents should be allowed to have clinics dispose of unused embryos, something that is a common, necessary part of the IVF process.”
Cruz tried to pass his legislation through the unanimous consent process, which allows any one senator to ask for approval. Any one senator can then block that request from moving forward — as Murray did. There is no recorded vote as part of the UC process.
Democrats’ 64-page bill would have provided legal protections for anyone seeking fertility treatment, including IVF, and for the health care professionals providing that type of care.
It would have barred state and federal governments from “enacting harmful or unwarranted limitations or requirements” on IVF access.
The legislation would have bolstered fertility treatment coverage for members of the military and veterans, as well as their spouses, partners, or gestational surrogates.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine supports Democrats’ legislation. Chief Advocacy and Policy Officer Sean Tipton wrote in a statement released this week that Democrats’ IVF bill would “protect the rights of Americans to seek the medical services they may need to have children and ensure no healthcare provider faces legal consequences for trying to help their patients as they seek to build their families.”
“This legislation also increases access to IVF treatments for all Americans by mandating that employer-sponsored insurance plans and other public insurance plans cover fertility treatment,” Tipton wrote. “Significantly, it would ensure the federal government does right by its own employees by providing coverage for active-duty military, veterans, and civilian staff.”
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