Trump wants to make the GOP a ‘leader’ on IVF. Rep

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 30.Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s vow to promote in vitro fertilization by forcing health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the treatments is at odds with the actions of much of his own party. Even as the Republican Party has attempted to create a national narrative that it’s receptive of in vitro fertilization, many Republicans have been left grappling with the innate tension between support for the procedure and for laws passed by their own party that grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who shared her own IVF journey on the Senate floor and co-sponsored a bill to protect the treatment, slammed Republicans for saying they support IVF in campaigning but not backing that up with their votes. Republican Sens. Katie Britt and Ted Cruz introduced a bill this year to prohibit states from receiving Medicaid funding if they ban the procedure. But that came after Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have made IVF a federal right. All Republicans except Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against the measure. This type of legislation, all proposed by Republican lawmakers, is based on the idea that life begins at fertilization and could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.