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Last week, former president Donald Trump surprised most of the country when he said that a second Trump administration would force either insurance companies or the federal government to cover the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
That announcement forced Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on the defensive when they hit the Sunday shows. Cotton for his part said he knew of no Republicans in Congress who opposed IVF, while Graham said the farthest he was willing to go was a tax credit for the treatment.
When Cotton was asked about the fact that he and all but two Republican senators opposed a bill to protect IVF, he called it “Chuck Schumer’s ridiculous messaging bill” and implied there was no point voting for it anyway.
It is true that Schumer put that bill on the floor during the summer as a way to put Republicans on record. These types of votes are standard, especially in an election year with a divided Congress.
Yet Schumer did so after the Alabama Supreme Court classified frozen embryos as children under state law back in February. That move sent fertility doctors — and would-be parents who were planning to rely on IVF to build their families — into a panic.
But if Cotton and Graham did not want Schumer to bait them, they could have easily voted for the measure, especially since it would not have passed the House.
And therein lies the rub. Trump’s proposal last week came out of left field and actually disrupts conservative plans and what much of the base believes about the practice.
Even more awkwardly, it contradicts what his own running mate, JD Vance, seems to believe about the subject. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Vance wrote the introduction to the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Culture and Opportunity, which served as a precursor to Project 2025. An essay about fertility treatment in that index stated that “we need to stop practices that may bring harm to others,” specifically calling out “the children born from high-tech pregnancies” as those who supposedly suffer harm.
And here Trump is proposing free, government-paid-for IVF for every American citizen. What’s going on?
Trump’s proposal would have little chance of passing the House, because a majority of Republicans have co-sponsored the Life Begins At Conception Act. That law specifically would provide “equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person” and would do so “at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization.”
The bill does not exist on the fringes of the GOP, either. House Speaker Mike Johnson co-sponsored it, as did Representative Dusty Johnson, head of the Main Street Caucus, the moderate wing of the House GOP conference.
The Senate version of the bill, which Senator Rand Paul introduced last Congress, specifically included a clause that said: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require the prosecution of any woman for the death of her unborn child, a prohibition on in vitro fertilization, or a prohibition on use of birth control or another means of preventing fertilization.” But despite Paul’s strident conservatism, he is actually largely out of step with much of the base of the Republican Party on this. Back in February, conservatives praised the Alabama ruling during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This came even as Republican candidates for Senate put out statements saying they opposed efforts to restrict IVF.
Clearly, the GOP is already in a confused state over IVF — and Trump has only created more chaos. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina put out a resolution earlier this year “expressing support” for IVF that did not actually change any policy or protect the treatment, for instance. And even then, that resolution could only muster up six co-sponsors, all of them endangered Republicans who knew they’d have to pander to swing voters.
All of this is to say that Republican accusations that Democrats are fighting a straw man are not true.
The Trump era has forced Republicans to toggle to the wishes of whatever their party leader wants, from taxes to immigration to spending. But they remain fundamentally split on IVF, which would make passing something along party lines pretty much impossible.
Ironically, Trump’s best hope for passing a policy he’s proposed would be with a Democratic House.
