The Democratic senator has long pressed to safeguard the fertility treatment she used to conceive her children, which has now been thrust into the political conversation.
When Senator Tammy Duckworth put off having children to prioritize her military career, the risk of losing her fertility because of combat injuries never crossed her mind.
But after she lost both legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq, Ms. Duckworth struggled for more than a decade with infertility — a condition her doctor suggested was tied to the many X-rays she received during treatment for her injuries — before giving birth to two daughters via in vitro fertilization. It’s an experience that prompted Ms. Duckworth, now a Democratic senator from Illinois, to draft legislation to establish a statutory right to I.V.F. access.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked the measure for the second time this year. The outcome was never in doubt; Democrats scheduled the election-season test vote to spotlight the G.O.P.’s opposition to abortion rights and its implications for other reproductive health care.
But for Ms. Duckworth, the effort is personal. Last month, she said at the Democratic National Convention that her initial inability to conceive was “more painful than any wound I sustained on the battlefield.” She has been speaking out about expanding access to I.V.F. treatments since long before an Alabama court ruled in February that fertilized eggs had personhood rights. While subsequent state legislation provided some legal protection, the ruling effectively criminalized parts of the I.V.F. process, which involves the freezing and discarding of embryos.
“I didn’t mean to become an advocate,” Ms. Duckworth said in an interview. “I just wanted to not have anybody else go through what I did.”
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