Trump thinks girls are silly and thinks they are often gaslighted in terms of IVF and abortion

The Harris-Waltz campaign is launching a bus tour and spending hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads to make sure voters know where Trump-Vance stands on IVF and abortion, despite Republican manipulation.

Is Donald Trump lying to the public about his stance on abortion? It certainly seems that way.

Trump

thinks women are stupid and we can be manipulated. He seems to think he can do one thing when he speaks to his extremist base and then turn around and smile at the overwhelming majority of Americans who want to see access to abortion and IVF protected and lie about it and believe it,” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said in a press conference attended by PoliticusUSA on Friday.

Republicans want to make IVF illegal, warned participants in the conference call between Harris and Walz. They emphasized that the Life of Conception Act and Trump's inclusion of the 14th Amendment in the party platform could ban abortion and endanger IVF.

“It's about getting protections, legal protections for IVF, that's the bill we voted on in June, and that's the bill that JD Vance voted against just before Donald Trump picked him as his running mate,” Warren told reporters in the question-and-answer portion of the call. “Donald Trump could have picked anyone else as his running mate, but he picked a Republican who had just voted against legal protections for IVF.”

The Harris campaign is using personal stories like that of Latorya Beasley, a woman who lost access to IVF treatments because of Alabama's abortion ban, made possible by former President Donald Trump's appointment of Supreme Court justices, to hope to appeal to Republican voters who are understanding of reproductive rights.

Trump's presidency ultimately led to extreme abortion bans through the decisions of his Supreme Court justices, which threatened nationwide access to IVF treatments by overturning Roe v. Wade, a ruling that in turn led to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos were children.

They warned: “Trump and Vance's MAGA platform promises to effectively ban IVF and abortion – and Trump continues to refuse to veto extreme legislation that would jeopardize access to IVF for families across the country.”

While that may sound exaggerated, Beasley's story shows how her IVF treatment was taken away mid-stream by the introduction of an extremist anti-abortion law in Alabama. The campaign warned that Alabama is not alone because of Donald Trump. Laws are now in place in states across the country that include language that could jeopardize fertility treatments and even contraceptives.

To bring it even closer to reality, Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, pointed out that the Republican Party platform “maintains radical and dangerous language on personhood. It proposes that fertilized eggs should have full civil rights under the 14th Amendment. If implemented, this policy would ban abortion and threaten access to IVF and contraception.”

“Donald Trump knew what he was doing when he included the 14th Amendment in his platform,” Timmaraju added. “They are winking at anti-abortion activists and telling them, 'Don't worry about what else I have to say to get elected. This is what I'm really going to do.' And you don't have to take our word for it, Students for Life calls the inclusion of 14th Amendment language 'the most significant contribution' the Trump platform has made to their cause. SBA Pro-life America has also praised the platform's mention of the 14th Amendment.”

Particularly as Donald Trump tries to distance himself from his unpopular misogynistic healthcare program, it is notable that Trump and his administration have appointed and are working with people who believe the IVF procedure is murder. Additionally, Trump has twice hosted the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who wrote the IVF ruling – including once during his presidency in 2018.

JD Vance had just voted against a bill protecting access to IVF treatments and already had a clear stance on the matter when Donald Trump named him his running mate. In case the goal isn't clear, Vance also told CNN that Republicans need to support federal anti-abortion legislation: “Republicans need to change their attitudes about abortion and start supporting federal legislation… 'We can't buy into the idea that Congress has no role in this issue,' he told us.”

Trump himself has boasted about overturning Roe v. Wade: “After 50 years of failure, with no one even coming close to the verdict, I was able to overturn Roe v. Wade, much to the 'shock' of everyone… Without me, there would have been no 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever is ultimately agreed upon. Without me, the pro-life movement would have just kept losing. Thank you, President TRUMP!!!”

When asked whether Democrats should try again to pass another IVF protection bill that would require the government or health insurance companies to cover the costs, Warren made it clear that Republicans had already answered “no” to the key question of whether IVF is legal: “The key question is whether IVF is legal, and Vance says 'no.'”

After 13 years of dealing with this issue as Republicans sought to ban abortion in several states across the country, it is probably fair to say that when you hear the word “personhood” in connection with fertilized eggs, the woman or girl carrying those eggs is no longer a fully-fledged human being.

“Personal status” does this by default because when it comes to “life” and “liberty,” those rights cannot be applied to an organism that belongs to a human without depriving the human of rights. This is another reason why abortion is considered a human right. It is the human right to have autonomy over their own bodies and everything in their bodies.

The media may believe Donald Trump's cynical, double-dealing arguments, but it's always better to pay attention to what someone does rather than what they say – especially when they're a known liar. While Donald Trump may not pass a federal abortion ban, he has already signaled that he does not view women as full human beings deserving of human rights and that he has little regard for access to IVF.

Human rights are too important to simply leave them to the hope that Donald Trump will tell the truth for once in his political career. The Harris-Walz campaign is trying to make that known with its ad campaign and bus tour. There is too much at stake for women to be manipulated by two men who openly display their contempt for women and girls.

If a politician signals that he has no respect for the personality of half the population, you should believe him.

Listen to Sarah in the PoliticusUSA Pod in the Daily Newsletter podcast here.

Sarah is accredited to cover President Barack Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She has exclusively interviewed Democratic Party Speaker Nancy Pelosi on multiple occasions and exclusively reported on her first private appearance following the first impeachment trial of then-President Donald Trump.

Sarah is a two-time Telly Award-winning video producer and member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Connect with Sarah via mail, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host and Twitter.

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