More than a dozen Democratic senators are demanding the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission abandon plans to roll back protections for workers seeking fertility treatments, according to a letter shared first with MS NOW.
In the letter sent to EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas on Monday night, the senators — including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. — say Lucas’ plan could undermine “critical protections for workers undergoing fertility treatments,” in violation of President Donald Trump’s campaign-trail promise to expand access to in vitro fertilization, also known as IVF.
“Your plan to remove workers undergoing fertility treatments from the rule reveals that President Trump’s promise to ‘expand[] access’ to IVF was entirely hollow,” the letter states.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” for limitations arising from pregnancy, childbirth or “related medical conditions.” That law took effect in June 2023, after former President Joe Biden signed it into law in December 2022, as part of a larger spending bill.
In a final rule interpreting how the law should be implemented, the EEOC determined the bill’s language should also cover accommodations for employees going through fertility treatments.
“Fertility treatments are intensive medical processes that have serious impacts on women’s lives,” the Democratic senators write.
They note the process can include daily injections of medications, regular visits to fertility clinics for monitoring, and procedures including an egg retrieval, which typically includes sedation, and an embryo transfer, often scheduled in advance. Every step in that process requires taking time off from work.
Back in 2024, Lucas — then a commissioner on the bipartisan, five member panel — voted against the EEOC’s final rule, arguing it was too broad in its proposed interpretation.
“Menstruation, infertility, menopause, and the like are not caused or exacerbated by a particular pregnancy or childbirth — but rather the functioning, or ill-functioning, of the female worker’s underlying reproductive system — and so are not subject to accommodation under the PWFA,” she wrote in her statement explaining her opposition.
After assuming the role of acting chair of the EEOC in January 2025, Lucas doubled down, releasing a statement announcing that she “intends for the Commission to reconsider portions of the Final Rule that she believes are unsupported by law” once a quorum was re-established. The commission lost its quorum, defined by the presence of 3 commissioners, after Trump fired two of its three Democratic commissioners days into his second term.
When a quorum was re-established in October — after the Senate confirmed Trump’s pick, Brittany Bull Panuccio, to serve as commissioner — Trump officially named Lucas as the EEOC chair the following month.
Since Trump resumed office, Lucas — a Republican who has served on the EEOC since 2020 — has sought to remake the office in Trump’s image, calling for white men to file discrimination claims, for example. Lucas has also consolidated power, proposing a motion to give herself sole discretion to decide what issues the commission should vote on. The motion passed two to one at a January meeting.
In their letter to Lucas, the Democratic senators raised concerns that she may strip IVF coverage from the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act unilaterally.
“Since you have taken over as Chair and announced your intention to change the EEOC’s rule, workers undergoing IVF or other fertility treatments — or who plan to do so — cannot be certain that they will have access to reasonable accommodations for their treatments,” the senators wrote. “And you have made this situation even worse by shrouding the EEOC’s decision-making in secrecy.”
Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, an organization that advocates for expanding IVF access, told MS NOW on Monday that Lucas’ proposal to remove the fertility coverage from the law “would have a real impact on patient’s ability to get the care that they need.”
“Infertility treatments, particularly IVF, are time-intensive,” said Tipton, who said his organization reviewed the senators’ letter for accuracy.
Recommended
Under the PWFA, Tipton added, workers “can’t get fired for missing work for your medical appointments.”
The senators ask Lucas to respond to a series of questions — including whether she has consulted with the White House on her proposal and whether she is considering implementing any other changes to how the EEOC regulates the law — by May 13.
Spokespeople for the EEOC and the White House did not respond to requests for comment from MS NOW on Monday.
The effort comes as the latest example of Democrats pushing Trump administration officials and allies to fulfill the president’s campaign-trail promise to make IVF free by forcing insurance companies, or the government, to pay for it.
Last February, Trump issued an executive order titled “expanding access to in vitro fertilization.” But contrary to its name, the EO didn’t actually expand access, instead just demanding “a list of policy recommendations” to expand IVF access within 90 days.
It wasn’t until October — eight months later — that the president announced both a cost-cutting deal on a critical IVF drug and a voluntary fertility benefit that employers could provide. The Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury departments subsequently issued guidance on the benefit, but it’s unclear if any companies have adopted it. Spokespeople for the Labor Department did not respond to an inquiry from MS NOW on Monday night.
Democrats pointed out that those measures were far less than what Trump promised while campaigning for a second term, when he dubbed himself “the father of IVF” following backlash over an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that illustrated how mounting abortion restrictions could imperil IVF.
Democrats also criticized the Trump administration for firing the approximately 40-person women’s health and fertility branch — which included a team working on assisted reproductive technology — at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of reproductive health last April.
Congressional Democrats and IVF advocates also slammed House Speaker Mike Johsnon, R-La., for working behind the scenes to strip IVF coverage for service members and their families from the final version of the defense bill, as MS NOW first reported in December.
And while reps Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, D-Fla., re-introduced a bill in March that would mandate insurance coverage for infertility and IVF treatments, there has been little momentum on the legislation thus far, with only 17 other House co-sponsors and no companion bill introduced in the Senate.
Removing people experiencing infertility from coverage under the PWFA, the Democrats write in the letter to Lucas, “does not change the fact that these workers are owed these protections, but it does make it more likely that employers will illegally deny women undergoing IVF their rights.”
In addition to Schumer, Warren, and Duckworth, the signatories of the letter include Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sen. Chris van Hollen, D-Md., Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md.
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.