Trump Calls Himself ‘Father of IVF,’ Thanks to Guidance of a ‘Fantastically Attractive’ Woman

Trump wants us to believe that Sen Katie Britt (R-Ala.) is an expert on IVF and, within two magical minutes, she made him an expert, too

By Kylie Cheung  |  October 16, 2024 | 5:53pm
Photos: Getty Images Politics
Trump Calls Himself ‘Father of IVF,’ Thanks to Guidance of a ‘Fantastically Attractive’ Woman

On Wednesday, Donald Trump sat for a Georgia-based town hall focused on women’s issues and hosted by Fox News. The event, which comes as Trump continues to fancy himself the great “protector” of women, went about as normally as every other time the former president has tried to speak to or about women. 

Asked about IVF, which has faced significant threats from Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion leaders this year, Trump sprung to action. “I want to talk about IVF,” he said. “I’m the father of IVF, so I want to hear this question.” I cannot stress enough that he could and should have phrased his enthusiastic, faux support for IVF pretty much any other way. But alas!

Mr. IVF Daddy then assured us we should trust that he supports the reproductive health service, because, as he put it, he recently talked to a beautiful woman about the matter: “I got a call from Katie Britt, a young… just a fantastically attractive person from Alabama. She’s a senator.” Britt is, indeed, a U.S. senator representing Alabama, whose looks don’t really have anything to do with that. I don’t know what Trump expects us to take away from his appraisal, but my read is that he’s saying he wouldn’t have spoken to or listened to her if she weren’t “young” and “fantastically attractive.” 

“[Britt] said, ‘I was attacked. In a certain way I was attacked.’ I said, ‘Explain IVF very quickly.’ And within about two minutes, I understood it,” Trump continued. “I said, ‘No, no. We’re totally in favor of IVF.’ I came out with a statement within an hour. A really powerful statement, and we went totally in favor. The Republican Party, the whole party.”

Trump is, as usual, incoherent, so allow me to try and translate. He seems to be saying that, in his recent conversation with Britt, she told him Democrats have “attacked” her on IVF, referring to how Senate Democrats have blocked her bullshit bill that postures as pro-IVF while being unhelpful.

More on that: In September, Britt claimed Democrats’ warnings about GOP threats to IVF were a “scare tactic.” Of course, just days earlier, Britt and fellow Senate Republicans voted (again!) against a bill to codify a federal right to provide and receive IVF, introduced by Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. Instead of backing Duckworth’s bill, Britt, alongside Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), reintroduced their own bill—first introduced in May—that claims to protect IVF by threatening to withhold funding from states if they enact explicit bans on IVF. But Britt’s bill is, if not useless, actively harmful: No state is going to impose an outright ban on IVF—instead, it’ll be pushed out of reach by anti-abortion laws that say life begins at conception (AKA fetal personhood laws), which Republicans like Trump, Britt, and Cruz support. Barbara Collura, president of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, explained to Jezebel in May: “It would be very easy for states to say ‘IVF is still legal but has to be done in a particular way,’ in a particular way that clinics can’t do, but still adhere to [Cruz and Britt’s] bill.” 

Nevertheless, Trump wants us to believe that the “fantastically attractive” Britt is an expert on IVF and, within two magical minutes, she made him an expert, too. During an August campaign rally, Trump pledged to start a program offering free IVF to all Americans, covered by either insurance or the federal government. “We want more babies, to put it very nicely. And for the same reason, we will also allow new parents to deduct major newborn expenses from their taxes,” he said in a statement at the time, of course citing right-wing pro-natalists’ favorite boogeyman: the ostensibly record-low national birth rate. And during the presidential debate in September, Trump declared, “I have been a leader on fertilization, IVF.”

But Trump’s posturing on IVF has stirred controversy within his own party, where fiscal conservatives question his proposals for its costs, and anti-abortion leaders are outraged because they see IVF as murder. 

In February, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos are “extrauterine children” and their destruction qualifies for wrongful death lawsuits. This led several fertility clinics to pause IVF services until state lawmakers rushed to pass a bill offering explicit IVF protections. But, since February, there’s been a chilling surge in threats to IVF—from Senate Republicans several times blocking pro-IVF bills to state GOP parties adopting platforms that call for the criminalization of IVF. JD Vance was among the GOP senators who voted against Democrats’ pro-IVF bill in June.

In response to Trump’s Wednesday claim about being the “father of IVF,” Harris wrote on social media, “What is he talking about? His abortion bans have already jeopardized access to it in states across the country—and his own platform could end IVF altogether.”

Trump’s women-focused town hall itself was a cynical ploy to address the gaping gender gap between him and Harris, which pollsters say could decide the election. A Marist poll published the same day as the event shows Harris leading him 57 to 42% among women. Surely odd comments about a woman’s appearance and about being the “father” of a reproductive health service will help with that!

 
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