On Friday, the former president Donald Trump declared that he would “strongly support the availability of IVF” and urged Alabama lawmakers to protect the treatment’s accessibility.
It was his first statement following a verdict by the Alabama Supreme Court that caused some providers in the state to halt their IVF procedures and caused a rift among Republicans throughout the country regarding the matter.
“Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families,” stated Trump in a post on his Truth Social network. Having children should not be more difficult for parents—rather, we want to make it easier!”
The remarks follow the finding that frozen embryos may be regarded as children under state law by the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court, one of the most conservative judicial panels in the country. Since then, IVF treatments have been temporarily suspended at a few Alabama clinics and hospitals, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system.
In a campaign season already rife with discussions about whether Republicans should pursue a national abortion ban following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, the fallout from Alabama has deepened divisions among conservatives over abortion and other reproductive services.
Additionally, Trump’s remarks are made on the last day of campaigning prior to the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, where the former president is the clear favorite over Nikki Haley, the former governor of the state and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.
During his tenure as president, Trump selected three judges who overturned Roe and opened the door for state legislators all over the nation to drastically restrict access to abortion.
Proponents of the anti-abortion movement have proposed that courts should go farther and declare embryos to be children, which would severely restrict IVF and other medical procedures. However, the Alabama case has emboldened proponents of abortion rights as well as a large number of centrist voters who saw the result of a tight embryo policy limiting many Americans’ only means of becoming parents to their own biological children.
Additionally, some more centrist Republicans fear that if GOP candidates are perceived as being too strong on certain reproductive issues, the party would lose more elections.