ROCK HILL, S.C. — Former President Donald Trump said he would “strongly support the availability of IVF” and called on lawmakers in Alabama to preserve access to the treatment that has become a new flashpoint in the 2024 presidential election.
It was his first comment since an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that led some providers in the state to suspend their in vitro fertilization programs and has left Republicans divided over the issue.
Trump, in a post Friday on his Truth Social network, said: “Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families. We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!”
The all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court, among the nation’s most conservative judicial panels, ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Since then, some Alabama clinics and hospitals, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, have announced pauses on IVF services
Ahead of South Carolina primary, Trump says he strongly supports IVF after Alabama court ruling
The fallout has deepened divisions among conservatives over abortion and other reproductive services in a campaign year already fraught with debates over whether Republicans should pursue national abortion limits after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide. Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his last remaining major opponent for the GOP presidential nomination, have both cautioned against an absolute national ban and now have distanced themselves from the Alabama case.
As president, Trump nominated three of the justices who overturned Roe and paved the way for state lawmakers across the country to impose dramatic restrictions on access to abortion.
“Trump cannot run from his record and neither can the millions of women who his actions have hurt,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, President Joe Biden’s campaign manager, in a statement.
Trump and Haley were campaigning Friday ahead of Saturday’s South Carolina Republican presidential primary, in which the former president is the overwhelming favorite, despite Haley having been twice elected South Carolina governor. The Alabama decision almost certainly will not change GOP primary dynamics, but the conversation carries important implications for the general election as Republicans try to avoid being tagged by Democrats as too extreme on reproductive policy.
Republicans’ Senate campaign committee leaders acknowledged the stakes with an open memo Friday warning that the Alabama case “is fodder for Democrats hoping to manipulate the abortion issue for electoral gain.” The memo included talking points for Republican Senate candidates, with “Express Support for IVF” topping the list of recommendations.
Speaking Friday night in Columbia, South Carolina, Trump acknowledged the tension among Republicans over the issue and said he had received praise for supporting IVF.
“A lot of politicians were very happy because they didn’t know how to respond to the decision that came down,” he said. “Now they all know how to respond.”
Haley steered clear of the IVF conversation Friday. She said Thursday, after the Alabama ruling, that she views human embryos, which are the earliest form of development after fertilization, as “babies.” But she also said she disagrees with the Alabama court and said the state’s legislators should “look at the law.” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and Republican legislative leaders had already started that conversation before the GOP’s presidential candidates weighed in.
In his social media post, Trump steered clear of declaring embryos to be distinct humans worthy of legal protection. His statement focused instead on the practical considerations for would-be parents trying to start families. IVF is typically a months-long process for couples or women who have struggled to conceive and maintain a viable pregnancy naturally. The treatments can cost patients tens of thousands of dollars, with no assurances that an implanted embryo will become viable and end with a healthy child.
“I’m pro-family,” Donald Trump Jr. said Friday in Charleston, campaigning on his father’s behalf not long before the elder Trump issued his statement. “Families should do what they want to be able to make families.”
Trump Jr. said he had not discussed the specifics with his father since the Alabama ruling but said he and his father both know families who have used IVF as a path to having children.
The former president and Haley have found themselves ensnared by abortion and reproductive politics already in the 2024 campaign.
