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)

Florida residents began repairing damage from Hurricane Milton, which smashed through coastal communities and tore homes to pieces, flooded streets and spawned a deadly tornadoes.

At least nine people are dead, but many expressed relief that Milton wasn’t worse.

Follow AP’s coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes.

Here’s the latest:

An apartment complex in Clearwater was evacuated early Thursday when water from a canal started rising.

Residents were gathered in a shopping center parking lot as crews worked to clear the property Friday.

Jared Lynch, 32, said he was at home on his first floor apartment when the water started to rise Wednesday night.

“It wasn’t that bad at 10 o’clock, but that’s when it started rising,” he said, adding that by 2 a.m., the water was up to his doorknobs. That’s when he left.

“There were literally people walking through the water with baskets on their heads. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lynch said.

But Deanne Criswell says FEMA will need additional funding at some point.

Criswell says the agency is keeping account every day of how much they’re drawing from the disaster assistance fund. That’s a pot of money allocated specifically to help the agency respond to emergencies across the country.

The fund gets replenished every year by Congress and is used to pay for recovery from hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other disasters.

Congress recently replenished the fund with $20 billion — the same amount FEMA got last year. About $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.

Criswell says the fund won’t have enough money to last through the entire fiscal year, which stretches to September of next year. She says at some point, they’ll have to go back to Congress to ask for a boost to the disaster relief fund.

“We will need one. It’s just a matter of when,” she said.

Mayor Lynne Matthews spoke at a news conference Friday with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and the city’s manager, Gregory B. Murray.

Matthews says 121 people had to be rescued after Hurricane Helene made landfall Sept. 26 but rescuers only had to save three people after Milton came through.

“So people listened to the evacuation order,” Matthews said.

“I know we had teams out with the megaphones going through all of our mobile home communities and other places to let people know that they needed to evacuate,” she said.

Bruce Kinsler, 68, was part of a Polk County “push crew” that began clearing roads before 6 a.m. on Thursday. A truck struck Kinsler as he and a coworker were trying to clear a tree that had fallen across the road as the storm passed through the area. The driver of the truck was a county employee who was arriving to join Kinsler for post-storm recovery work.

“The tragedy of this incident is compounded by the fact that Bruce Kinsler was killed serving the residents of this county,” said Bill Braswell, chairman of the Polk County Commission. “We ask a lot of the employees as public servants, and they respond to the call. For this to happen is just a tragedy.”

The White House announced Biden’s visit but did not detail exactly where the president will travel.

Biden was scheduled to be briefed by aides Friday afternoon on the federal response and recovery in the aftermath of Hurricanes Milton and Helene. He’ll then deliver remarks from the White House to update the public about those efforts.

One of those Friday was a large pig stuck in high water at a strip mall in Lithia, FLorida, which is east of Tampa. Cindy Evers led the rescue of the pig and she’s also saved a donkey and several goats.

The animals are being taken to Evers’ farm for the time being.

“I’m high and dry where I’m at and I have a barn and nine acres,” she said. “So we have plenty of room for these animals to be safe.” Evers said she’ll figure out next steps later, such as finding the animals' owners.

Gov. DeSantis noted interactions with downed power lines and water.

“We are seeing hazards that are still there,” he said. He said people should take care around standing water and should use generators properly.

“You have to make the proper decisions and know that there are hazards out there,” he said.

Human-caused climate change intensified deadly Hurricane Milton ’s rainfall by 20 to 30% and strengthened its winds by about 10%, scientists said in a new flash study. The analysis comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the southeastern United States, a storm also fueled by climate change.

World Weather Attribution researchers said Friday that without climate change, a hurricane like Milton would make landfall as a weaker Category 2, not considered a “major” storm, instead of a Category 3.

WWA’s rapid studies aren’t peer-reviewed but use peer-reviewed methods. The WWA compares a weather event with what might have been expected in a world that hasn’t warmed about 1.3 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times.

▶ Read more about how climate change affected Milton.

Only authorized personnel are allowed on the bases. There was damage and flooding at MacDill, which is home to U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command.

There's no significant damage at Patrick and teams are working to restore critical infrastructure, according to the Air Force.

The river is 25 miles (40 kilometers) long and runs from eastern Hillsborough County, east of Tampa, into Tampa Bay.

The sheriff’s office asked people to call 911 if they need help getting out of their homes.

A pair of unwelcome and destructive guests named Helene and Milton have stormed their way into this year’s presidential election.

The back-to-back hurricanes have jumbled the schedules of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, both of whom devoted part of their Thursdays to tackling questions about the storm recovery effort.

The two hurricanes are forcing basic questions about who as president would best respond to deadly natural disasters, a once-overlooked issue that has become an increasingly routine part of the job. And just weeks before the Nov. 5 election, the storms have disrupted the mechanics of voting in several key counties.

A pick up drives past a guard gate on a flooded street in Siesta Key, Fla., following the passage Hurricane Milton, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

FILE - People are rescued from an apartment complex after flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, Oct. 10, 2024, in Clearwater, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - A house sits toppled off its stilts after the passage of Hurricane Milton, alongside an empty lot where a home was swept away by Hurricane Helene, in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, Fla., Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)