The Harris campaign says Donald Trump will ban abortion nationwide if elected in November. Likewise, Democrats claim he doesn’t want women to have the right to in vitro fertilization (IVF). Meanwhile, the man himself says he would not support a nationwide ban on either abortion or IVF. On the contrary, he’s now advocating IVF be paid for by either the government or insurance companies. Would a second-term President Trump endorse a federal prohibition on either, or is this claim merely a straw man designed to frighten voters?
He Said, She Said
Kamala Harris promised back in July to “restore reproductive freedom,” and she soon clarified that she meant restoring Roe v. Wade. “I am being precise,” she said in an interview with Face the Nation. “We need to put into law the protections of Roe v. Wade.” On the other end of the spectrum, former President Trump wants a nationwide ban on abortions and IVF – or, so the vice president would have us believe.
Harris’ campaign hosted a press call Friday, August 30, titled “Donald Trump’s Threat to Reproductive Freedom, Including IVF.” The call featured Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Reproductive Freedom for All President Mini Timmaraju, and Latorya Beasley, a mother from Alabama. The call came just a day after the former president said in an interview with NBC that his administration would protect IVF and even cover the cost or force insurance companies to pick up the tab.
But Harris and her supporters aren’t buying it. “American women are not stupid, and we know the only guarantee protection for IVF is a new national law, which Kamala Harris supports and Donald Trump opposes,” Sen. Warren said. “Anyone who cares about IVF will vote for Kamala Harris for president and Democrats for Congress.” Warren’s words echo her response to JD Vance’s recent claim that Trump would veto a nationwide abortion ban if it came across his desk.
The official GOP stance isn’t to support a nationwide ban but to leave the matter of legislating abortion access to each state. Constitutionally, that seems to be the most appropriate take, especially after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which states that the Constitution doesn’t confer a right to abortion and that the issue is “returned to the people and their elected representatives.” An argument might be made to include the national level, meaning Congress could pass a law either banning or protecting abortion, but the language throughout the ruling focuses on individual state authority to regulate, not federal. As such, it seems unlikely the current Court would rule in favor of any national law banning or protecting abortion once the inevitable challenge came.
Abortion, IVF, and Reproductive Freedom
In any debate or analysis of opposing viewpoints, it’s important to define the terms. Progressives in general – including, more specifically, Vice President Harris and many other Democrats – have called for a restoration of “reproductive rights.” But, to quote Inigo Montoya, a character from The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Pregnancy isn’t an action; it’s a consequence. Intercourse and IVF cycles, on the other hand, are actions – more specifically, they’re the actions that sometimes result in the consequence known as pregnancy. When a woman chooses to become pregnant, she’s really choosing to carry out one or both of these actions, hoping for the desired results. This may seem like a frivolous point to make or like a distinction without a difference, but when it comes to discussions of rights and obligations, it matters.
Reproductive freedom, therefore, is not exercised at the time of abortion or conception, those who oppose abortion argue, but at the time of intercourse or during the IVF attempt that caused the pregnancy. When the so-called “pro-choice” activists – another misleading term, by the way – argue that women have reproductive rights and that it should be their choice of what to do with their bodies, they’re setting up a straw man argument. The “pro-life” people aren’t saying women don’t have the right to choose or to regulate their bodies, simply that the choice is made when the act is committed and that there’s no right to eliminate someone else’s body.
The real issue is the fact that, from the point of conception, the fetus is a living, genetically unique human being. That is, by the way, a biological truth according to the science as it is and has long been understood, not a matter of opinion. The zygote (fertilized egg) meets all the definitions of life as applied to any other living organism, and it is genetically unique and will bear the same DNA at one year old, ten, or even a hundred years old. Want to rid yourself of a clump of cells? Well, most folks, regardless of political affiliation, would likely agree that’s your right.
Ending the life of another human being simply because you don’t want to be a parent? That’s where a conflict arises. Additionally, note that no state’s abortion ban fails to make an exception to save the life of the mother or to remove an ectopic pregnancy. Despite the progressive argument, these bans only target elective abortions to kill an unborn child as a matter of convenience. But, of course, the former president isn’t trying to establish a nationwide ban, no matter what his opponents say.
As for IVF, it’s no surprise that only 4% of Americans polled by Yahoo News/YouGov support restriction. The full breakdown was 55% more accessible, 23% not sure, 19% no change, and 4% less accessible. A ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court did state that embryos created through this procedure could be considered children. However, this was not designed to endanger the process, even if it did create a bit of panic among service providers; state legislators quickly passed a law to protect IVF. And, again, despite what Harris and the left in general have to say on the matter, Trump claims he’ll go beyond protecting IVF access by actually guaranteeing and funding it.
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Liberty Vault: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
