“Protecting IVF, like protecting contraception, is not a show vote,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “Every single Republican needs to answer clearly for the record: Do you want our laws to protect IVF or do you want laws that say frozen embryos have the same rights as living, human beings? You cannot have both.”

Duckworth, an Army veteran who used IVF to conceive her two children, introduced measures to enshrine protections for IVF and other assisted reproductive services into law and expand access to fertility treatments for veterans and service members.

Both had previously been brought before the Senate earlier this year but were blocked by Republican senators.

Other measures would aim to make treatments more affordable by requiring insurance plans to include coverage for IVF and protect providers of the services from facing legal liability for discarded embryos.

The package is unlikely to pass amid continued opposition for Republicans who have complained that the four Democratic bills were made a future campaign material rather than something that could become law. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one Republican who said she would vote for the bills to show that the GOP is not against IVF but called them “clearly not a serious attempt at legislating.”

A failed Republican attempt to address the issue in the Senate, would have denied federal funds to those not protecting IVF but did not address the issue of protecting providers from legal action for discarding embryos.