At an all-female townhall that aired on Wednesday, former President Trump resoundingly supported in vitro fertilization (IVF). “We’re totally in favor,” he said. Is the left excited about his support? No, they’ve decided to lie about it, for political gain.
Women are not so easily fooled.
They know that as the fertility rate in America hit an all-time low in 2023. And nearly half of white women in the U.S. have used reproductive assistance or know someone who has. This number is up nearly 10 percent since 2018. The use of IVF alone increased 6 percent between 2021 and 2022. The landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade, and continues to shift.
As the number of Americans turning to reproductive technologies increases exponentially, so too does the importance of the issue with potential voters this election cycle. And when it comes to IVF or any type of assisted reproduction, Democrats have continued to conflate terms, misstate technologies, and lie about Republicans’ clearly stated positions.
Democrats’ position on IVF came into the spotlight in the wake of an Alabama court decision that said IVF patients could recover financially after an IVF facility let a rogue person into its embryo storage area. The person smashed these poor parents’ embryos, and the parents wanted to be compensated as if life, not property, had been taken from them.
This had nothing to do with the legality or morality of IVF, and certainly nothing to do with Roe v. Wade. Yet Democrats took advantage of those issues to pretend Alabama Republicans had somehow passed an anti-IVF law. In fact, Alabama Republicans immediately passed the opposite law to curb the effects of the court ruling and protect the financial viability of IVF companies.
After Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) was selected as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, he and his wife made news by alluding to their emotionally exhaustive fertility treatments, even sending out a fundraising email with the subject line: “Our IVF journey.”
The Walzes’ comments were designed to curry favor with those who had completed the rigorous, expensive process of in vitro fertilization. But in actuality, they had done a different treatment, known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI.
IVF cycles can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000, taking an average of 2.5 cycles for a woman to become pregnant. It’s emotionally taxing, and it creates a close community of fellow travelers.
In contrast, IUI is often the first step in receiving fertility treatments, and is much less physically intrusive. The procedure can be completed in a single office visit, after monitoring. IVF, in contrast, requires doctors to harvest women’s eggs. This entails manual egg stimulation, which requires multiple self-administered shots throughout the day and many extensive clinic visits. The time, physical pain and cost are simply not comparable.
For Walz to assert he’s done that journey borrows couples’ pain for his political gain.
Finally, Harris and other Democrats falsely link abortion access with IVF.
Even though abortion and IVF are different discussions, in a statement issued by the White House, Vice President Harris said she “condemns” Republicans’ alleged opposition to IVF, hinting that the overturning of Roe v. Wade or abortion policy is somehow involved.
Democrats have been working hard to make a “slippery slope” argument, saying that if Republicans are anti-abortion, they are surely anti-reproductive technology as well. Sarafina Chitka, Harris’s spokesperson, explicitly stated that “IVF is already under attack” since the overturning of Roe.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
As an initial matter, Trump has an incredibly moderate abortion position. The presidential hopeful has repeatedly said that he supports listening to the will of the people, giving each state the freedom to pass the law that works for its population, and he has clearly advocated for exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.
But also, neither Trump nor his running mate, JD Vance, have ever made statements against IVF or access to IVF; in fact, Trump has gone so far as to say that IVF treatments should be government-funded or funded by insurance companies.
Instead of cheering, Democrats merely voice their skepticism, saying such funding may not be possible. According to experts, though, this is feasible. Recently in an interview in Philadelphia, Vance explains the ticket’s position further, likening fertility treatments to other expensive medical care that insurance companies cover. Harris has never made a similar commitment to IVF.
While IVF and other emerging reproductive technologies become commonplace in the average American household, only one party to date has made promises with regards to its accessibility, much to the chagrin of the media. Women should take note.
Maggie Cleary Kilgore is a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Law Center and deputy commonwealth attorney in Culpeper County, Virginia. She is former special counsel to Attorney General Jason Miyares and former deputy secretary of public safety and homeland security under the Youngkin administration. She is also a former federal prosecutor.
