|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
On Tuesday, APR spoke with A. Eric Johnston, an attorney and president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition — the advocacy group responsible for drafting, and ultimately passing, the Alabama Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Alabama Post-Viability Abortion Ban Act.
Johnston shared his thoughts on recent comments made by former President Trump and his running-mate Sen. JD Vance concerning abortion law, IVF treatment, and women’s health writ-large.
Trump recently took to Truth Social to say that “The Republican Party is charging forward on many fronts, and I am very proud that we are a LEADER on I.V.F.” And in another post, Trump said that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights.”
Alongside recent claims by Vance that Trump would veto any federal abortion ban that might reach his Oval Office desk, it appears that the GOP candidates are softening their stances on abortion and women’s health issues as election day grows closer.
On IVF, Johnston thought that Trump’s comments were in alignment with the preferences of Republican voters and pro-life advocates. “The Democrats are using the IVF issue to say that Republicans and pro-life people want to take away IVF… we are not against IVF, Trump is not against it as far as I know, [and] I think Republicans across the board are not against it,” Johnston said.
However, Johnston still believes that some measures need to be taken concerning in vitro fertilization.
“The Alabama Supreme Court opinion really brought the IVF issue up. It was not really on anyone’s horizon before then,” Johnston continued. “It’s a healthcare practice that needs to be regulated. There needs to be a standard of care and there never really has been one because it’s never been regulated.”
Johnston also alleged that IVF clinics have some level of supposed legal immunity, and that the Alabama Supreme Court decision which ruled that fertilized embryos are human beings was aimed at enforcing the rule of law. “They have made IVF clinics above the law and its wrong,” he said.
While the IVF industry is oft-criticized for its lack of consistent regulation, that is not entirely true. Doctors must report IVF success rates to the US government under the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention audits a sample of that self-reported data every year.
In a March 2024 interview with Vox, Sean Tipton, the chief advocacy and policy officer for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said that “the idea that [IVF] is unregulated is completely wrong, and people who make that argument are either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading.”
Johnston also shared his thoughts on Trump and Vance’s messaging on abortion.
“Who knows what they’re going to do when they get there. These people in the political sphere say these things and you don’t really know what they mean by them,” Johnston said in response to Trump’s posts on Truth Social.
“From what I can tell, Trump does not think abortion is a great idea but he might allow it in the early stages.”
Johnston also expressed how abortion seems to be a winning issue for Democrats at the moment, “Democrats have made abortion one of their main issues. They’ve done a good job making it an issue… [and Trump] tends to shy away from the issue.”
Legally, Johnston also thinks that Democrats would be within their rights to pass a federal law protecting abortion across the country were they to attain the political capital to do so.
“[Congress has] the right to preempt state law if they want to do that. The Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision did not say Congress couldn’t do that,” Johnston said. “[But] who knows exactly what the Supreme Court would say if Congress passed a law and someone challenged it.”
Democrats saw great electoral success in the 2022 midterms in which abortion was a particularly potent issue in the immediate wake of the Dobbs decision and they appear intent on continuing to leverage the issue in their favor ahead of November. Additionally, the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on IVF has given Democrats another national talking point which they are using to attack the GOP.
The Trump campaign now appears to be taking a softer approach on women’s health issues as an attempt to minimize their electoral impact. Whether or not this strategy will work with voters — and if it will actually be reflected by the policies of a second Trump White House — has yet to be seen.
