Former President Donald Trump has accused Vice President Kamala Harris of flip-flopping on her policies this electoral cycle. But the Republican nominee has himself publicly shifted his positions on a woman's right to choose, opposing and then supporting Florida's six-week abortion ban while coming out in favor of state-funded fertility treatments. Believing that it's a losing issue, he's also tried to change the topic, preferring to demonize Haitian immigrants rather than discuss his shifting stances on reproductive freedom.
The former president boasts about his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, claiming that abortion bans are best sorted by the states instead of at a federal level. He's also expressed support for the morning-after pill and promised, without providing details, that he'd make the government and insurance companies pick up the costs of in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Despite all his attempts at striking a moderate pose, many in the anti-abortion movement believe Trump's just playing politics and that he will do as the movement wishes when back in power, deriving comfort from his refusal at this month's debate to say that he would veto a national abortion ban. An ardent anti-abortion activist told Salon that “of course” Trump will sign “any” restrictions that Republicans send his way when he wins the White House.
In fact, Lila Rose — who started the anti-choice group Live Action when she was 15 years old — believes that voters like her shouldn’t lose too much sleep over the claims Trump makes when he's in campaign mode.
"One of the things that's been so compelling for so many people about President Trump is that he's a fighter," she said in an interview.
Rose acknowledged that her “fighter” and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, have shown a “softening on life." The Republican ticket has balked at explicitly endorsing a national abortion ban, preferring strategic ambiguity, and even suggested that IVF should be funded by taxpayers.
But she believes that Trump and Vance just need some critical support; she's not too concerned that their campaign proposals will be reflected in actual policy.
“Minds are still being made up and, policies are actively changing. President Trump seems to be actively introducing policy proposals and changing stances,” Rose told Salon. “So I think now's the time for pro-life Americans to say, 'Listen, if you want the pro-life votes, fight for life.'"
While anti-choice activists may not like everything Trump says on the trail and believe there should be some pushback, they see a wide gulf between him and his Democratic opponent. Harris, in their view, is a non-starter, the vice president having pledged to restore the national right to an abortion. Trump, by contrast, is just trying to win an election — and will have to lean on a base, and Republicans in Congress, who are adamantly opposed to moderation on questions of "life."
“It's a very difficult election cycle because we're dealing with one party, the Democratic Party, whose nominee is passionately pro-abortion,” Rose told Salon, calling Harris and Walz “the most pro-abortion ticket in American history.”
That leaves anti-choice campaigners with the Republican Party, which in turn cannot afford to alienate a key constituency. That could portend a rollback of rights that the Trump-Vance ticket is today claiming it will protect as it seeks to maintain the GOP coalition.
Rose, like other anti-choice activists, has extreme views on when life begins that are out of step with scientific understanding of human development. These activists claim to not see any difference between an embryo, a fetus and a live baby. And they are not alone: such extreme views are reflected in Republican-led states such as Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma, where laws assert that life begins from the moment of fertilization.
However, medical experts are clear that an embryo is not a fetus and a fetus is not a child.
“It’s not until about 10 weeks that there is an actual structure that has four tubes and connects to the lungs and major vascular system like we would think of as a heart,” Dr. Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington Medicine, told NBC.
Additionally, it is only at about 10 weeks of pregnancy that an embryo becomes a fetus, which is the state it remains in until birth. The debate over when "life" begins impacts not just abortion policy, but efforts to produce a child via IVF, which activists like Rose see as tantamount to murder.
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IVF refers to a process wherein mature eggs are collected from ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab, as explained by the Mayo Clinic. Often this fertility treatment is sought out by individuals who have trouble conceiving children on their own.
“Every child created using IVF is a precious, irreplaceable human being and deserves every protection and has all the dignity of every other human being, and these lives are incredibly precious,” Rose told Salon. “That's why IVF is so problematic, because according to the research, it's about 93% of all children created through IVF, but don't make it to birth. They're killed via embryo destruction, or they are miscarried, or they're in deep freeze. They're frozen indefinitely, or they end up being donated for human experiments, and, in laboratories."
According to the national and clinic-specific data from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), an association of America’s fertility clinics dedicated to the practice of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), released in April of this year, 2.5% of all births in the country are a result of successful ART cycles. In 2022, the number of babies born from IVF increased from 89,208 the year before to 91,771.
Among the GOP base, the Live Action president is not alone in her belief that IVF effectively kills more "children" than it creates.
“We believe human embryos should not be destroyed,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told Salon in a statement. “All too often, proposals on this issue go too far by giving blanket immunity to IVF clinics — even for rogue practitioners who switch human embryos, fail to follow basic safety standards, or negligently destroy human embryos desired by infertile couples.”
“IVF is an industry that needs strong oversight and regulation, especially considering its standard operating procedure of force fertilizing young life and then destroying them when no longer desired,” Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy at Students for Life Action, told Salon in a statement. “Such callous disregard for the humanity of the preborn isn't part of every nation's practices. This emphasis on IVF among the Democratic Party is the very definition of cognitive dissonance, as the party both celebrates the destruction of human life in abortion while trying to embrace families who would welcome those children.”
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Asked to comment on Trump’s own stated support for IVF, including state funding for the procedure, Hamrick told Salon: “J.D. Vance went on Fox & Friends shortly after Trump's remarks to media and said that the conscience rights of Americans would not be violated with a new mandate, but we need the details to know that.”
And therein lies the crux of the issue. Although Trump has tried to distance himself from the more extreme views in the anti-choice movement, those views are widespread among the GOP's core voters —and those voters think Trump is one of them. At the very least, foes of abortion and IVF are reasonably convinced that Trump will sign any restrictions sent his way by a Republican Congress.
What's more, despite the former president's more moderate claims as of late, few in his party have lent those claims their support.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., speaking on a recent press call hosted by the Harris-Walz campaign, said that Democrats want to work with Republicans to protect IVF. On Sept. 17, however, all nine Republican senators running for reelection voted against the Right to IVF Act, which would create a federal, statutory right to fertility treatment. Vance did not show up (a spokesperson said he was busy campaigning).
"If he was on the phone last night urging people [to vote] 'yes,' then I'll take him seriously," Stabenow said. "This is just excuse after excuse after excuse because they don't believe women and their families should have their own freedom to make decisions using IVF," she concluded.
Steven Miller, a father from Wisconsin who used IVF to start a family, said that was no shock.
"It's no surprise to me that JD Vance couldn't be bothered to show up for it for today's vote. We know he voted against IVF access the last time he had a chance. Just like Donald Trump appointed an anti-IVF judge to the federal bench as president," Miller, who noted that he is a Christian, said on the press call.
"Vance loves to talk about family values and has plenty of time to degrade childless people in the press, but when it comes to real action to support families' access to IVF, he's not just missing action he's working with his Project 2025 allies to undermine our families rights to make their own health care decisions," the father of twins who are now starting kindergarten said.
Anti-choice activists and Democrats do seem to converge on one point: Trump and the GOP are anti-choice, and despite their campaign rhetoric, their actions — overturning the federal right to an abortion and failing to protect IVF — reflect their dim view of reproductive freedom.
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