Former President Donald Trump during the debate against President Joe Biden on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. Photo: Jack Gruber/USA TODAY / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday scrambled to salvage any hope of earning the votes of suburban women and others opposed to Republican efforts to strip them of their bodily autonomy, even denouncing his state’s six-week abortion ban and promising free in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
“We want more babies, to put it very nicely,” Trump pandered.
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Fearing the impact of two years of judicial and legislative assault on reproductive freedoms in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which ended federal protections for abortion rights, Trump went on offense Thursday, trying to soften his image on the issue.
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At a town hall in Michigan hosted by the anti-LGBTQ+ former Democratic Congresswoman and failed presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, Trump claimed not only that he was a big supporter of IVF but that a second Trump administration would pay for the treatments.
“I’m announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for, or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for, all costs associated with IVF treatment,” the former president said in Potterville.
“And for this same reason, we will also allow new parents to deduct major newborn expenses from their taxes so that parents that have a beautiful baby will be able, so we’re pro-family,” Trump continued.
“I’ve been in favor of IVF right from the beginning,” Trump added.
He didn’t specify how the free treatments — which normally run into the tens of thousands of dollars and higher — would be paid for or who would be eligible.
IVF is a popular family-building tool for LGBTQ+ people.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that fertilized embryos had the same rights as children and adults, and their destruction in the process of IVF was murder. Assigning “personhood” to fertilized embryos is at the heart of Republicans’ efforts to ban abortion and hasn’t changed despite Trump’s efforts to paint a more moderate picture.
“I kept hearing that I’m against it, and I’m actually very much for it,” Trump reiterated at an event in Wisconsin later in the day.
The Harris-Walz campaign wasn’t buying it.
“Donald Trump’s own platform could effectively ban IVF and abortion nationwide,” said Sarafina Chitika, a campaign spokesperson, following Trump’s promises of free stuff.
“Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren’t stupid,” she added.
In another effort to gaslight the public on Republicans’ true intentions around reproductive freedoms, Trump prevaricated in an interview with NBC on whether he would support Amendment 4 in his home state of Florida. The ballot initiative would render moot the state’s draconian six-week abortion ban in favor of restrictions in line with Roe.
“Well, I think the six weeks is too short. It has to be more time,” Trump said. “And I’ve told them that I want more weeks.”
Shortly after, the Trump campaign walked back the candidate’s declaration.
In a statement to CNN, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, “President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida, he simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short.”
Both the Republican platform and Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s Christian nationalist-inspired blueprint for a second coming of the former president, redound with policy aimed at curtailing the right to choose.
While the platform was watered down to avoid any mention of a national ban on abortion, both that document and Project 2025 lay the groundwork for revoking FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, using the Comstock Act to prosecute people who send abortion pills through the mail, ending an insurance mandate for other contraceptive coverage, requiring states to report where women seeking abortions live, and ending subsidies for stem cell or fetal cell research.
