Ahead of South Carolina primary, Trump says he strongly supports IVF after Alabama court ruling
ROCK HILL, S.C. — Former President Donald Trump said Friday that he would “strongly support the availability of IVF” and called on lawmakers in Alabama to preserve access to the treatment that has become a new flashpoint in the 2024 presidential election.
It was his first comment since an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that led some providers in the state to suspend their in vitro fertilization programs and has left Republicans divided over the issue.
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Trump, in a post on his Truth Social network, said: “Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families. We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!”
The all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court, among the nation’s most conservative judicial panels, ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Since then, some Alabama clinics and hospitals, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, have announced pauses on IVF services.
The fallout has deepened divisions among conservatives over abortion and other reproductive services in a campaign year already fraught with debates over whether Republicans should pursue national abortion limits after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide. Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his last remaining major opponent for the GOP presidential nomination, have both cautioned against an absolute national ban and now have distanced themselves from the Alabama case.
Trump and Haley were campaigning Friday ahead of Saturday’s South Carolina Republican presidential primary, in which the former president is the overwhelming favorite, despite Haley having been twice elected South Carolina governor. The Alabama decision almost certainly will not change GOP primary dynamics, but the conversation carries important implications for the general election as Republicans try to avoid being tagged by Democrats as too extreme on reproductive policy.
As president, Trump nominated three of the justices who overturned Roe and paved the way for state lawmakers across the country to impose dramatic restrictions on access to abortion.
“Trump cannot run from his record and neither can the millions of women who his actions have hurt,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, President Joe Biden’s campaign manager, in a statement.
