The Harris campaign is blasting Donald Trump's "lies" about in-vitro fertilization after the ex-president said on Thursday if elected he will order the federal government or insurance companies to pay for the cost of IVF. That claim mirrors several Democratic bills, including legislation Senate Republicans blocked in June. He also vowed to help parents with newborns deduct costs from their taxes, a proposal similar to part of Harris's broad economic plan to help families lower expenses.
"Donald Trump's own platform could effectively ban IVF and abortion nationwide," the Harris-Walz campaign said in a statement Thursday evening. "Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren't stupid. Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and women's freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country."
As NCRM reported last month, the Republican National Committee's new platform, mentioned by the Harris campaign in its statement, paves the way for fetal personhood, which would be in direct conflict with both abortion and IVF.
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Trump's IVF announcement came in a "chaotic, self-aggrandizing speech in Potterville, Michigan," and "which he had more or less spoiled in a pre-speech interview with NBC," according to The New Republic,
“Because we want more babies, to put it nicely,” Trump told a group of about 100 people at Alro Steel. “And for this same reason, we will also allow new parents to deduct major newborn expenses from their taxes. So that parents that have a beautiful baby… will be able… so, we’re pro-family, nobody’s ever said that before,” Trump said.
Two weeks ago Harris unveiled her economic plan, including "restoring the expanded child tax credit of up to $3,600 a child, which was put in place in 2021 amid the Covid-19 pandemic and expired at the end of that year," the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. "She will also throw her support behind a new further expansion of the tax credit that would provide up to $6,000 in total relief for middle- and low-income families during the first year of a child’s life.”
Democrats in the Senate filed the "Right to IVF Act," but Republicans blocked the bill which would have not only ensured the use of assisted reproductive technology techniques are protected as a right but would have "expanded access through insurance as well as for military members and veterans," the Associated Press had reported. Two other bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, "mandate insurance coverage for IVF and other infertility treatments. It's backed by ~25 House members and ~4 Senators. All of them are Democrats," Bloomberg's Steven Dennis reported.
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Trump on Thursday falsely claimed to have been “in favor of IVF right from the beginning.” IVF this year has been an albatross around Republicans' necks. Many Republicans, especially the religious right and those who hold anti-abortion views equate IVF with abortion.
In his rambling interview with NBC News on Thursday, Trump said, "Well, as you know, I was always for IVF right from the beginning, as soon as we heard about it, it's fertilization, and it's helping women and men and families, but it's helping women able to have a baby."
"Some have great difficulty," Trump added, "and a lot of them have been very happy with the results as you know and what we're doing, and we're doing this because we just think it's great. And we need great children, beautiful children in our country. We actually need them. And we are going to be under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment. So we are paying for that treatment," he repeated, "or we're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."
Watch Trump's remarks below or at this link.
Former President Trump tells NBC News that if he’s re-elected, his administration would not only protect access to IVF, but would have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of it.
More: https://t.co/ByO77cGtx8 pic.twitter.com/Liv2FgO2XT — NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) August 29, 2024
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