Conservatives slam Trump’s IVF plan, calling it worse than Obamacare’s birth control mandate

On Thursday, Trump announced that he supports federal taxpayer funding and an insurance mandate to cover “all costs associated with IVF treatment.”

“We want more babies,” the former president said, adding that he was “in favor of IVF from the beginning.” The Trump campaign did not respond to the request Washington Examinerrequest for clarification on policy.

Religious conservatives said Trump’s proposal was similar to Obamacare’s requirement for employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives and emergency contraception.

Religious conservatives, particularly Catholics, and other strong abortion advocates argue that IVF is morally dangerous because of the destruction or perpetual freezing of human embryos involved in the process.

“It’s much worse than mandatory contraception because it’s much more ethically problematic,” said Michael Pakaluk, a longtime Catholic abortion advocate and professor at the Catholic University of America. Washington Examiner. “Doesn’t Trump even understand the damage this has done?”

In recent weeks, both Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have distanced themselves from the party’s anti-abortion base, starting with removing nearly all references to abortion from the Republican Party platform in July.

Last week, Trump said his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights,” and Vance promised that Trump would veto any federal abortion ban in his second term.

Eric Sammons, editor of the Catholic publication Crisis Magazinecalled Trump’s announcement about mandatory IVF “the final nail in the coffin” of Trump’s abandonment of the party’s anti-abortion base.

“Under the Obama administration, part of Obamacare required companies to cover contraceptives,” Sammons wrote Friday. “Trump’s proposal is actually worse, because it would fund the destruction of human life on a massive scale.”

Anti-abortion objection to IVF

IVF became a central issue during the election cycle when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in a complex wrongful death case that human embryos created in an IVF lab have personhood rights under state law.

Although the state legislature quickly amended the law to exclude embryos from the state’s unique legal personhood statutes, the debate ignited a firestorm in an election year already focused on abortion.

Democrats have campaigned in support of IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies (ART), expanding the definition of reproductive and health care rights. Republicans, meanwhile, have been divided on the issue, with some seeing IVF and other ART as inherently pro-family.

IVF requires a doctor to fertilize the mother’s egg with sperm in a laboratory, creating an embryo that is then frozen at a certain stage of development and destined to be transplanted into the mother’s uterus. Up to 15 eggs can be extracted from a mother during a treatment, but only 80% are viable to be fertilized and create embryos.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that in 2021, more than 238,000 women underwent IVF, but fewer than 100,000 embryos were brought to term. That means hundreds of thousands of embryos were destroyed, frozen, or otherwise did not survive.

Even in states like Louisiana, where the law prohibits the willful destruction of viable embryos, patients often resort to cross-border transfer of their extra embryos for disposal.

Edward Feser, a philosophy professor at Pasadena City College, spoke out against Trump’s position on abortion. Washington Examinerwrote in a scathing opinion piece published Friday that “there is no moral difference between killing embryos in an abortion and doing so in IVF.”

Obamacare contraception requirement

The requirement that employers provide health insurance that covers all forms of contraception, including post-fertilization contraception, regardless of religious objections, has been one of the most controversial parts of Obamacare, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

More than 100 religious business owners and nonprofit groups, including Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor, sued the Obama administration, arguing that the mandate violated the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which provides a stronger legal framework for First Amendment protections of religious freedom.

“Catholics did not want to be forced to provide contraceptives, some of which are abortifacients, others which they simply cannot accept as Catholics,” Pakaluk said.

As the law currently stands, only places of worship are completely exempt from the contraception requirement, while non-profit groups and closed societies with strong religious objections can benefit from accommodations that do not cover contraception.

But anti-abortion conservatives consider mandatory coverage of IVF, which can cost up to $20,000 per cycle, to be even more morally reprehensible.

“Let’s set aside the fundamentally anti-conservative idea that the government should pay for optional services,” Sammons wrote. “This proposal would not only fund the destruction of human lives, but would also force Catholic institutions to pay for services they find deeply immoral.”

A spokesperson for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the law firm that represented Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters in their respective Supreme Court cases, told the Washington Examiner He declined to comment on partisan campaign promises.

Others have been more inclined to criticize Trump’s position.

“Once again, Trump is not only failing to advance the pro-life cause,” Feser said in his article. “He is supporting a practice that kills more unborn human beings than abortion itself.”

Pakaluk noted that Trump ran in 2016 on a promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, in part because of opposition to requiring employers to cover their employees’ health care. Now, Pakaluk said, Trump is trying to use employer coverage requirements to his advantage.

“I don’t know who Trump is, and I think a lot of people are going to be confused by this announcement,” Pakaluk said. “It could weaken support and enthusiasm.”

Trump or not Trump

In recent weeks, anti-abortion organizations and opinion leaders have been divided over whether to support the former president in an election against Vice President Kamala Harris’s outspoken pro-abortion stance.

Lila Rose, director of the group Live Action, has been an outspoken critic of Trump since his statement in support of “reproductive rights,” saying she is using her platform to urge the Trump campaign to reconsider its commitment to the anti-abortion cause.

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“Trump’s victory as a pro-abortion candidate is a loss for the pro-life movement,” Rose said Thursday. “Given the current situation, we have two pro-abortion slates. A Trump victory is not a pro-life victory at this point. Pro-lifers will have to challenge both leaders in some way.”

Rose also said Thursday that using taxpayer money or forcing insurance companies to cover IVF was not “morally different from mandating birth control under Obama.”