Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States Donald Trump said this Wednesday, October 16, speaking to an exclusively female audience that he is the “father of in vitro fertilization,” thus trying to win over female voters ahead of the presidential election.
About this writes HuffPost.
“We really are the party of in vitro fertilization. The Democrats have tried to attack us on this, but we are even more active than they are in the field of in vitro fertilization,” Trump said.
At the same time, Trump did not develop the topic of women’s reproductive rights, which is considered a weak point in his election campaign. And, as the New York Times recalls, Republicans in Congress have twice recently voted against legislation protecting IVF.
In the same interview, Trump said that after a February court decision to ban IVF in the very conservative state of Alabama, he received a call from Republican Senator Kathy Britt to discuss the growing controversy surrounding the topic of in vitro fertilization.
“I told her, ‘Explain IVF to me very quickly.’ And within two minutes I understood and said, ‘No, no, we are for IVF!’” Trump said.
After the interview aired, Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt explained that the presidential candidate’s remark about IVF was “a joke made in a fit of enthusiasm.”
The publication notes that Donald Trump is significantly behind his rival Kamala Harris in the polls among the female electorate. Over the past 15 years in the political arena, Trump has had a very inconsistent position on abortion. He first positioned himself as a supporter of women’s free choice, and then called for “some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.
Trump also boasted that, thanks to the appointment of three conservative justices to the US Supreme Court in June 2022, he was able to overturn constitutional guarantees of abortion rights. But, having since faced harsh criticism from Democrats and public opinion, Trump is now trying to portray himself as a defender of “reproductive rights.”
Trump’s rival, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, called Trump’s remarks about IVF “pretty strange.”
“His abortion bans have already jeopardized access to this technique. [ЭКО – ред.] in the United States, and his own campaign program could put an end to in vitro fertilization altogether. So let’s not get distracted by his choice of words. The reality is that his actions have already harmed women and families,” Harris said.
