Republican candidate Donald Trump announced Thursday that he supports reimbursement for in vitro fertilization for couples in the United States so that the country can have “more babies.”
“Under a Trump presidency, the state or your insurance company will pay all costs associated with IVF,” the former president said at a campaign rally in Michigan.
The issue of IVF is particularly sensitive and very political in the run-up to the November presidential election.
Since the US Supreme Court ended the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion in 2022, abortion rights advocates have been concerned that medically assisted procreation, particularly IVF, could be affected.
In February, a court in the very conservative state of Alabama said it considered frozen embryos to be “children,” and several specialized clinics announced they were suspending their activities in the wake of the decision.
The case, directly linked to the abortion debate, quickly rose to the top of the electoral campaign.
It illustrates a certain unease within the conservative camp which claims to be resolutely “pro-life”. However, suspending IVF is, for some, in contradiction with the defense of the family and traditional values.
“We want more babies,” Donald Trump said Thursday.
Very ambiguous on abortion, the septuagenarian also indicated during an interview on the sidelines of the meeting that the current six-week deadline for abortion in Florida, the state where he resides, was “too short.”
“It needs to be longer,” he told NBC.
The issue of protecting abortion rights, central to the duel between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, will be the subject of a referendum in Florida and a handful of highly contested states for the November election.