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JFJohn Fetterman

The Record · Pennsylvania

John Fetterman

PA · Democrat · Senate

—10 votes tracked — not enough yet for a grade
Next up 2029

The short version

John Fetterman helped women and families in all 10 votes we track.

What helped most

  • Voted against the 2025 law that cut Medicaid.

    What it means for herShe's 24, works part-time in Ohio with no insurance from her job, and hopes to have a baby someday. Medicaid pays for about 4 in 10 U.S. births. Starting in 2027 in most states, she must show 80 hours of work a month. If a slow month or a lost form cuts her off, she loses coverage before she is even pregnant. Source: KFF, 2025

  • Voted against letting states drop Medicaid and CHIP coverage while a person's citizenship or immigration papers are checked.

    What it means for herShe's 23, a U.S. citizen, and newly pregnant. She applies for Medicaid, but her birth certificate is in another state. Today her state must cover her for up to 90 days while it checks. This would have let states refuse, and cut federal money for her care if her papers were not cleared in time. Source: Code of Federal Regulations, 42 CFR 435.956

  • Voted against adding prison time for health workers to a born-alive law that already exists.

    What it means for herShe's 22 weeks pregnant and just learned her baby has a fatal condition. Only 1.1% of U.S. abortions happen at 21 weeks or later. If her baby is born alive after an abortion, this bill would make her doctor send the baby to a hospital right away, even if it cannot survive, or face up to five years in prison. Source: CDC, Abortion Surveillance, 2024

Every vote we track

Helped women and families9

  • Voted noThe 2025 law that cut Medicaid · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 24, works part-time in Ohio with no insurance from her job, and hopes to have a baby someday. Medicaid pays for about 4 in 10 U.S. births. Starting in 2027 in most states, she must show 80 hours of work a month. If a slow month or a lost form cuts her off, she loses coverage before she is even pregnant. Source: KFF, 2025
    DetailsOfficial title: Medicaid cuts / work requirementsFrom the official Senate roll call (2025–26, roll call 372): voted NAY.official roll call
  • Voted noLetting states drop coverage while papers are checked · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 23, a U.S. citizen, and newly pregnant. She applies for Medicaid, but her birth certificate is in another state. Today her state must cover her for up to 90 days while it checks. This would have let states refuse, and cut federal money for her care if her papers were not cleared in time. Source: Code of Federal Regulations, 42 CFR 435.956
    DetailsOfficial title: Blackburn amendment — Medicaid and CHIP bar by immigration status (motion to waive, 2025)From the official Senate roll call (2025–26, Senate vote 345): voted NAY.official roll call
  • Voted noAdding prison time to an existing born-alive law · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 22 weeks pregnant and just learned her baby has a fatal condition. Only 1.1% of U.S. abortions happen at 21 weeks or later. If her baby is born alive after an abortion, this bill would make her doctor send the baby to a hospital right away, even if it cannot survive, or face up to five years in prison. Source: CDC, Abortion Surveillance, 2024
    DetailsOfficial title: S.6 — Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (cloture on the motion to proceed)From the official Senate roll call (2025–26, Senate vote 11): voted NAY.official roll call
  • Voted yesProtecting access to IVF · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 34, married, and has tried for a year to have her first baby. In the U.S., 1 in 5 married women like her cannot get pregnant after a year of trying. This bill would have made IVF a right under federal law, and made health plans that cover pregnancy care cover fertility care too. Source: CDC, 2024
    DetailsOfficial title: S.4445 — Right to IVF Act (cloture, 2024)From the official Senate roll call (2023–24, Senate vote 242): voted YEA.official roll call
  • Voted yesProtecting the right to birth control · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 19 and on the pill. Her right to birth control rests on Supreme Court rulings from 1965 and 1972. When the Court ended Roe in 2022, one justice wrote that it should rethink the 1965 ruling. This bill would have made birth control a right under federal law. Source: Dobbs v. Jackson, 2022, Thomas concurrence
    DetailsOfficial title: S.4381 — Right to Contraception Act (cloture)From the official Senate roll call (S4381, 2023–24, roll call 190): voted YEA.official roll call
  • Voted noPutting Susan Monarez in charge of the CDC · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 29 and pregnant with her first baby. The CDC studies why mothers die. It found that over 80% of pregnancy-related deaths from 2017 to 2019 could have been prevented. Susan Monarez ran the CDC for less than a month before she was fired. Source: CDC, 2024 (archived page)
    DetailsOfficial title: Monarez confirmation — CDC Director (2025)From the official Senate roll call (2025–26, Senate vote 445): voted NAY.official roll call
  • Voted noPutting Jay Bhattacharya in charge of the NIH · Helped women and familiesThe NIH is the largest public funder of medical research in the world, including studies of pregnancy and women's health.
    DetailsOfficial title: Bhattacharya confirmation — NIH Director (2025)From the official Senate roll call (2025–26, Senate vote 141): voted NAY.official roll call
  • Voted noPutting Marty Makary in charge of the FDA · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 26, six weeks pregnant, and plans to use the abortion pill. In 2023, pills were used in 63% of U.S. abortions. In 2025, Marty Makary told state officials the FDA would review the pill's safety rules. He resigned in 2026. Source: Guttmacher Institute, 2024
    DetailsOfficial title: Makary confirmation — FDA Commissioner (2025)From the official Senate roll call (2025–26, Senate vote 143): voted NAY.official roll call
  • Voted noPutting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of health · Helped women and familiesWhat it means for herShe's 31 and pregnant with her first baby. In 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 contributed to 25% of U.S. maternal deaths. In 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the COVID vaccine for healthy pregnant women off the CDC's recommended list. Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2022
    DetailsOfficial title: Kennedy confirmation — HHS Secretary (2025)From the official Senate roll call (2025–26, Senate vote 52): voted NAY.official roll call

Shown for context, not counted1

  • Voted noTax cuts for the richest Americans · Shown for context, not countedShown for context. It does not count toward the grade.
    DetailsOfficial title: Top-bracket tax cuts (TCJA 2017; 2025 reconciliation)Shown for context, not scored: voted NAY on the 2025 reconciliation bill, which carried the top-bracket tax cuts. Senate roll call 119-372.official roll call
How we count

We wrote down which bills and nominations count, and why, before we scored anyone. A vote counts as hurting women and families when it takes away care, coverage, safety or rights, and as helping when it protects them. A missed vote never counts against anyone. Money and court cases are shown, but never change the grade.

THE DOWNSTREAM-RECORD RULE also governs agency-leadership confirmations here, under the same three constraints as Judicial & structural: symmetric, applied to every confirmation in the dimension, and the later event cited like any other evidence. Who runs CDC, NIH or FDA is a vote about what that person will then do.

Read the full method

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