Former President Donald Trump voiced support for in vitro fertilization Friday, urging the Alabama legislature to reverse the effects of a recent state Supreme Court ruling that led some clinics to pause treatments.
"The Republican Party should always be on the side of the Miracle of Life — and the side of Mothers, Fathers, and their Beautiful Babies,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that marked his first comment on a topic that has roiled the GOP this week.
For some in the GOP, the ruling amounted to an unforeseen consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, which paved the way for states to restrict abortion. Trump has pointed to his selection of three of the justices who voted in the majority on the Dobbs decision as evidence of his anti-abortion credentials.
But on Friday, he took issue with the Alabama court's conclusion that embryos are children under state law.
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"Like the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans, including the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and Pro-Life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Today, I am calling on the Alabama Legislature to act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama."
President Joe Biden's campaign criticized Trump's statement as an attempt to “whitewash the reality he created.”
“American women couldn’t care less what Donald Trump posts on Truth Social, they care that they can’t access fertility treatment because of him," said Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez. “Let’s be clear: Alabama families losing access to IVF is a direct result of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justices overturning Roe v. Wade. Trump is responsible for 20-plus abortion bans, restrictions on women’s ability to decide if and when to grow a family, and attacks on contraception. He proudly overturned Roe, and brags about it on the campaign trail — as recently as last night."
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Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, said in a statement earlier in the week that she also wants the legislature to send her a bill protecting IVF treatments.
“Following the ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court, I said that in our state, we work to foster a culture of life,” she said. “This certainly includes some couples hoping and praying to be parents who utilize IVF."
Lawmakers in Alabama’s House have already filed legislation that would protect IVF services.
It states: “Any fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists in any form outside of the uterus of a human body shall not, under any circumstances, be considered an unborn child, a minor child, a natural person, or any other term that connotes a human being for any purpose under state law.”
Republican state Sen. Tim Melson told the Alabama Reflector that he planned to introduce similar legislation in the upper chamber.
Before Trump weighed in on the matter for the first time, his lone remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, struggled to define her position. In an interview with NBC News Wednesday, she said, "Embryos, to me, are babies."
On Thursday, she said in an interview with CNN that she opposes the Alabama court decision.
President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election, harshly denounced the state court's IVF ruling Thursday.
"Today, in 2024 in America, women are being turned away from emergency rooms and forced to travel hundreds of miles for health care, while doctors fear prosecution for providing an abortion. And now, a court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant,” Biden said in a statement. “The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Biden also called the court opinion a "direct result" of the Dobbs decision, which overturned the longstanding Roe vs. Wade opinion that had protected abortion rights, and Vice President Kamala Harris directly blamed Trump.
“Ask who’s to blame,” Harris said at a roundtable event in Michigan on Thursday. “And I’ll answer that question: When you look at the fact that the previous president of the United States was clear in his intention to hand-pick three Supreme Court justices who would overturn the protections of Roe v. Wade. And he did it. And that’s what got us to this point today.”
Biden has vowed to fight to restore those rights at the federal level.
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