Trump’s endorsement of IVF is a distraction from the real problem

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and a half-century of abortion rights two years ago, Donald Trump said it would be bad for Republicans. He was obviously referring to himself, as last week he awkwardly offered a few different stances on abortion as he tried to find his footing, confusing his supporters.

The sweeping court decision was the result of the three judges Trump put on the court and is now fighting over two months before Election Day.

During an interview with NBC News on Thursday, he said a second Trump administration would either directly provide or require insurers to provide in vitro fertilization treatments for anyone who needed them.

What will happen then? Is the federal government going to provide or require coverage for IVF treatments and then keep the tens or hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos that result? For how long, indefinitely? And who exactly is going to allocate the enormous resources that will be needed?

Congress would probably not be too enthusiastic, and it is doubtful that Trump could pull off another fiscal stunt like the one he pulled off by allocating military funds to build a border wall. Experts, actually well versed in the matter, have already said that it is a logistically difficult task to carry out.

This is most likely intended to divert attention from the issue of abortion access, where Trump is decidedly at a disadvantage with an electorate that, despite all the conservative movement’s decades of disinformation campaigning and restrictions, continues to support abortion care.

Trump wants to use the related IVF issue as a weapon to say he is not out of touch with public preferences, a strategy he has followed ever since he publicly criticized the Alabama Supreme Court’s post-Roe decision to consider people with frozen embryos. We doubt that will really work.

On abortion, Trump, now a Florida resident and voter, said the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks is too short a period, leading people to think he might vote in favor of the Sunshine State’s ballot proposal to overturn the six-week ban by enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution. But when that angered his pro-life supporters, he changed his mind again on Friday and said he was going to vote against the constitutional amendment. He has become deeply entangled in this issue.

Trump was right in his prediction two years ago about the problems Republicans would have, but he bears the ultimate responsibility, having chosen three Supreme Court justices specifically for the purpose of overturning Roe. The abortion bans, like the one in Florida; the state constitutional amendments — which passed everywhere they were put on the ballot — and his new IVF treatments guaranteed to all are all consequences of Roe’s downfall.

The Supreme Court was wrong to overturn long-standing precedent, but in his opinion in the Dobbs case, Justice Sam Alito said the abortion question would be up to the states to decide. And what is happening is that the pro-choice majorities in the states are now exercising their unleashed power. Trump sees this and it is the reason he is engaged in his back-and-forth dance. We will soon find out if the public is buying his choreography.

This editorial first appeared in the New York Daily News. This commentary should be considered as an alternative viewpoint and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post.