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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Trump declares himself ‘father of IVF’ at town hall with all-female
audience
By Gregory Krieg and Kate Sullivan, CNN
Updated:
1:27 PM EDT, Wed October 16, 2024
Source: CNN
on Tuesday declared himself the “father of IVF,” a fertility
treatment that has come under threat following the Supreme Court’s
2022 decision to .
It’s unclear what precisely the former president meant when he made
the comment at a Fox News town hall in battleground Georgia that was
billed as focusing on women’s issues and had an all-female audience.
But he has repeatedly returned to the issue – talking up his support
for IVF – on the campaign trail, where he has given a long series of
confusing or contradictory answers about his stance on abortion.
“We really are the party for IVF,” Trump told moderator and Fox
News host Harris Faulkner on “The Faulkner Focus.” “We want
fertilization, and it’s all the way, and the Democrats tried to
attack us on it, and we’re out there on IVF, even more than them. So,
we’re totally in favor.”
, an expensive, decades-old treatment used by millions of parents,
became a flashpoint in the nationwide clash over abortion and
reproductive rights earlier this year when said that frozen embryos are
children and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful
death.
The Alabama ruling infuriated reproductive rights advocates who
reasoned it would have a chilling effect on IVF, scaring off doctors
who perform the procedure and sending prices even higher. It also set
off a political firestorm that ultimately sent the state’s
Republican-led Legislature scrambling to pass a bill giving civil and
criminal immunity to providers and patients.
Trump and Republicans quickly distanced themselves from the Alabama
case, but Democrats, led by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign,
have argued that the ruling offered a preview of the policies Trump
would seek to enact if he returned to the White House.
“Donald Trump called himself ‘the father of IVF.’ What is he
talking about?” the vice president late Tuesday. “His abortion bans
have already jeopardized access to it in states across the country —
and his own platform could end IVF altogether.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Harris said she found Trump’s
comments to be “bizarre” and said he should instead be taking
responsibility for the climate around abortion rights in the US.
“I’m going to say what I’ve said publicly and what I’ve said
many times based on my observations. … Donald Trump is increasingly
unstable, and as has been said by people who have worked closely with
him even when he was president, he’s unfit to be president of the
United States,” she said.
In the aftermath of the Alabama decision, Trump claimed he would enact
a federal policy . He did not say how he would go about doing so or
whether the government or insurers would foot the bill.
Senate Democrats, keen to highlight the issue ahead of the election,
have twice this year brought up a bill that would guarantee access to
IVF nationwide – with Republicans each time. Many of those GOP
opponents have said they do support IVF but criticized the legislation
as unnecessary overreach and a political show vote.
During the town hall, Trump also criticized some states for placing
restrictions on abortion that he called “too tough,” saying,
without providing any details, that those laws are “going to be
redone.”
“The states are now voting (on abortion rights), and honestly, some
of them are going much more liberal, like in Ohio,” Trump said.
Faulkner then noted that “some of (the states) are not,” that
enacted or activated bans or restrictions on the procedure after Roe
was overturned in 2022 and where those limits remain in place.
“And some of them are not, but it’s going to be redone,” Trump
replied. “It’s going to be redone. They’re going to, you’re
going to end up with a vote of the people. And some of them, I agree,
they’re too tough, too tough.”
Still, Trump again touted his role in appointing Supreme Court justices
who struck down Roe v. Wade and argued that the issue should be left to
the states to legislate. He also expressed support for exceptions to
abortion bans in the case of rape, incest and when the life of the
mother is in danger.
After previously refusing to commit either way, Trump earlier this
month said he would veto a federal abortion ban. His running mate, Ohio
Sen. JD Vance, during his vice presidential debate with Minnesota Gov.
Tim Walz, acknowledged the GOP’s difficulties navigating the issue
– suggesting his party push new legislation to help parents in need.
“We’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American
people’s trust back on this issue, where they frankly just don’t
trust us,” Vance said.
Two-thirds of Americans oppose the Supreme Court’s decision,
according to a conducted this summer.
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