Fact Check: Trump’s Republican Party Platform Threatens Americans’ Access to IVF, Birth Control, Abortion Arrow

As Donald Trump, JD Vance, and MAGA Republicans continue to lie about their extreme, anti-choice records, including threatening the freedom to access IVF, DNC National Press Secretary Emilia Rowland released the following statement:

"Donald Trump and JD Vance are so out of touch with reality that they actually expect Americans to believe they want to protect IVF- when both Trump's Project 2025 agendaand the 2024 Republican Party platform push the concept of 'fetal personhood,' which could endanger IVF access nationwide. They can deny the truth all they want, but Trump's embarrassing attempts to distract Americans from how his own actions paved the way for extremists to attack our most fundamental reproductive freedoms are clearly backfiring."

Trump's RNC platform AND Trump and Vance's Project 2025 agenda both include explicit language advocating for "fetal personhood" - a legal concept that directly threatens IVF.

Slate: "The [Republican] platform pairs its commitment to states' rights with a nod to fetal personhood, a legal concept that would-as the modern anti-abortion movement understands it-render laws protecting abortion rights, even ballot initiatives, unconstitutional. Most contemporary anti-abortion advocates, including the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, argue that the recognition of fetal personhood would require limits on or even bans of IVF."

Forbes: "[The Republican platform] also states the GOP 'believe[s] that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights'-a provision that endorses the legal theory known as 'fetal personhood.'"

The 19th: "RNC approves platform that would give rights to fetuses, endangering abortion, IVF"

"Fetal personhood is widely seen as being in conflict with in vitro fertilization (IVF), which creates embryos outside of the uterus that are later implanted. Fetal personhood bestows the same rights currently reserved for people to embryos from the moment of fertilization."

Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 450: "From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity and worth, and our humanity does not depend on our age, stage of development, race, or abilities."

The Nation: "And by declaring that life begins at conception, his [Project 2025] manifesto appears to commit HHS to finding ways to outlaw IVF, which relies on generating multiple embryos, most of which are not implanted."

Reproductive Freedom for All: "The extensive mandate calls to gut reproductive freedom, including effectively banning medication abortion, ending access to emergency abortion care, attacking contraception, deploying fetal personhood, and undermining IVF in federal policy…

"Project 2025 includes personhood language and policies that propagate the belief that life begins at conception-which could have devastating impacts should it be put into law. This so-called "personhood" language could ban not only abortion but also some forms of birth control and assisted fertility treatments like IVF."

Office of Sen. Patty Murray: "The extreme ideology of fetal personhood fundamentally changes the legal rights and status of all pregnant women and forces them to forfeit their own personhood once they become pregnant. Efforts to establish fetal personhood also stigmatize-and could put an end to-IVF care and other assisted reproductive technology (ART). As Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) has repeatedly made clear, 'you cannot support IVF and support fetal personhood laws. They are fundamentally incompatible!'"

NBC News: "But with the landmark Roe ruling protecting those rights gone, efforts by conservative lawmakers and judges to advance fetal personhood bills pose a real threat to some fertility treatments, including IVF, reproductive rights advocates say."

Thanks to his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, Trump has paved the way for his GOP cronies in red states to threaten IVF.

Nature: "Is IVF at risk in the US? Scientists fear for the fertility treatment's future"

New York Times: "[The Alabama Supreme Court ruling on IVF was] made possible by the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in its 2022 Dobbs decision, which was a result of Mr. Trump's appointment of three justices."

Texas Public Radio: "'We don't know where we stand': IVF in Texas is on shaky ground"

MSNBC [Opinion]: "Alabama's embryos ruling is a terrifying preview of another Trump presidency"

"Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos frozen in in vitro fertilization procedures are 'children' under state law, and that a person responsible for their destruction can be held liable. The opinion is a staggering attack on every facet of reproductive health, including the freedom of people experiencing infertility who use assisted reproductive technologies. It represents the culmination of a movement to enshrine into law the unscientific and purely religious claim that life begins when a sperm fertilizes an egg, supplanting secular laws with supposedly 'biblical' beliefs.

"This theocratic dystopia is not an outlier, confined to a single state, but rather a roadmap should Donald Trump return to the White House."

Washington Post: "Texas high court declines to decide if embryos are people or property"

CNN: "How the reversal of Roe v. Wade led to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children"

Vox: "The Alabama Supreme Court opinion holding that embryos are children, explained"

"More broadly, the story of reproductive freedom in post-Roe America has been a story of uncertainty.

"After Roe was struck down, a raft of criminal abortion prohibitions suddenly sprung to life in many red states. Many of these prohibitions have never been construed by any court, and some health providers have been reluctant to perform even lifesaving abortions that are protected by state law - because they have no way of knowing if the state courts will honor that protection.

"In Alabama, that uncertainty now extends to medical facilities that provide IVF care."

American women know better than to believe Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Senate Republicans' lies and false promises on IVF:

HuffPost: "'Women Are Not Stupid': Democrats Scoff At Trump's Pledge To Cover IVF Costs"

"'American women are not stupid,' Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Friday on a press call organized by Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, calling his proposal 'smoke and mirrors.'

"'Making vague promises about insurance coverage does not stop a single extremist judge or state legislature from banning IVF,' she added, advocating for federal legislation protecting access to the treatment."

Sen. Tina Smith: "Women see Trump's attempt to modulate his radical position on reproductive rights for what it is: a total lie […]"You can't support 'fetal personhood' while giving a wink to supporting IVF. Trump overturned Roe. And that's why we are here."

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