Donald Trump in South Carolina. AP.
Donald Trump says he supports in vitro fertilization after a controversial ruling from Alabama's Supreme Court that put the practice into doubt. AP. Trump made the comments after the court ruled that fertilized embryos are people, which could be interpreted as making IFV illegal. Several clinics in the state have stopped the practice as a result. Trump said that Republicans support people having families and wants to make it easier, not more difficult, to have children. The issue deepens the debate about abortion, which could be a loser for Republicans in 2024. Though many people oppose at-will abortion, most agree there should be exceptions and few believe IFV should be banned. Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr. said that both he and his father had known people that had conceived children via the treatment.
My Comment:
This was a good move by the Trump campaign and Republicans in general. Very few people support a ban on IVF, at least that is my reckoning. It's actually very hard to find an opinion poll that asked the question, though that could just be the absolute uselessness of modern search engines (I tried to get raw data but all I found on both Google and Bing were links to news articles about the Alabama SCOTUS ruling, which is beyond useless).
My guess is that people that actually support banning IVF are in the single digits in terms of percentage. The procedure is not uncommon and many people know folks that have had their children this way. I can't say even among pro-life people have I ever met someone who wants the procedure banned. It strikes me as a hugely fringe position, one that almost nobody supports.
But I will say that I am uncomfortable with the procedure for non-abortion and non-religious reasons. First of all I worry that it could cause genetic problems down the line if people with genes that would otherwise render them infertile are allowed to reproduce this way and it could lead to even more infertile people. This objection does not seem to be discussed at all so I don't know how big of a concern it actually is. I wouldn't support a ban just based on this question, but I would like it answered if possible.
I also think it encourages people to wait too long to have children. Most of the people that are using IVF are not genetically infertile, they just waited too long to have kids. People should be having children in their 20's and 30's, not their 40's and 50's, and IVF encourages that since it remains an option. Again, that's not to say that I would support a ban on it for a reason, but I do think there are some arguments against IVF that aren't based on objections to abortion or based on religion.
Regardless, I do think that most people are wishing for a compromise on the issue of when life actually begins. It's a philosophical question but I don't think people are comfortable with either extreme. Though very few people support post-birth abortion, they also don't really support the idea that an embryo is a person either. As someone who views the entire argument as academic, I don't have strong opinions either way, but it is frustrating for everyone in the middle that the only options that people are allowed to consider are the extremes. I think all but the most pro-life and pro-choice people would support a compromise where abortion remains legal in the 1st trimester but after that is illegal except for the big three exceptions, rape, incest, and to protect the mother's life.
Politically, this issue is absolutely a loser for Republicans. Banning IVF is not something most Republicans support, let alone independent voters. If Republicans had gone all-in on the Alabama Supreme Court ruling it would have absolutely hurt them in 2024. But if they are able to fix this via the Alabama legislature, and I think they will be able to, then the issue should be moot. The fact that Trump made this statement is proof how badly this idea polls and rest of the Republican Party will likely fall in line behind him, as Nikki Haley (ugh) already has.
As for Trump, his own opinions on this issue seem to be in the middle. He did, of course, support the justices that overturned Roe v Wade, but he also seems to get that the extreme pro-life position is not a political winner. He has in the past been critical of states that banned abortions completely without the big three exceptions and now he has come out in favor of IVF. There might be a few pro-life people that will be upset with that but I would say that would be foolish given that Trump gave pro-life people their biggest victory in history.
Finally, I do think we should be encouraging people to have children. Though unlimited growth isn't possible we are in a major decline of fertility and if it wasn't for immigration, legal or otherwise, the United States would be losing population by 2030 because young people simply aren't having kids anymore. This is a very bad thing as losing population when you have a massive welfare burden and a huge elderly population of Baby Boomers no longer in the workforce is the recipe for economic collapse.
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