After Alabama Ruling, Republicans Scramble to Embrace IVF
Plus: How far will Nikki go?
Some shocking—shocking, we say—news from CNN yesterday: “Kenneth Chesebro, the right-wing attorney who helped devise the Trump campaign’s fake electors plot in 2020, concealed a secret Twitter account from Michigan prosecutors, hiding dozens of damning posts that undercut his statements to investigators about his role in the election subversion scheme, a CNN KFile investigation has found.”
Also, the federal government (partially) shuts down in four days.
Happy Tuesday.
Republicans: We Love IVF!
Two years after Dobbs v. Jackson, Republicans are already losing the political fight over abortion access badly enough. So you can imagine how veins bulged and eyes popped as the news flashed across screens at the RNC and NRSC last week that the Alabama Supreme Court had ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children under Alabama state law, throwing widely used fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization into unexpected legal jeopardy.
Republicans quickly rallied to IVF’s defense.
“We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Like the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans, including the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and Pro-Life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.” House Speaker Mike Johnson called IVF “a blessing for many moms and dads who have struggled with fertility.”
And the NRSC sent an unambiguous message to its Senate candidates with a memo emphasizing this was not a fight they wanted to pick. “When responding to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, it is imperative that our candidates align with the public’s overwhelming support for IVF and fertility treatments,” the memo stated, with flinty don’t-screw-this-up intensity.
The problem, as Mona Charen points out on the site today, is that this pro-IVF stance is at least partially in tension with the “life begins at conception” stance that has long undergirded many Republicans’ opposition to legal abortion. She writes:
In the last Congress, more than 160 House Republicans, including Johnson, cosponsored H.R. 1011, the “Life at Conception Act,” which extends Fourteenth Amendment protections to include “preborn human person[s],” declaring “that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning [sic], or other moment at which an individual comes into being.”
Republicans have also marched in lockstep to oppose the Right to Contraception Act introduced by Democrats because it would have included methods, such as IUDs and the morning-after pill, that some consider abortifacients. It’s hard to square support for IVF, which, as practiced in the United States, nearly always entails the loss of fertilized eggs, with opposition to Plan B because it may result in the loss of a fertilized egg.
Democrats have been happy to make the same case. The White House on Monday circulated a memo from press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denouncing Johnson’s support for the Life at Conception Act, which she called “an extreme, dangerous bill that would eliminate reproductive freedom for all women in every state.”
“Republican officials think they can obfuscate their way out of their support for these extreme policies. But spin is not a time machine,” Jean-Pierre wrote. “Their agenda is clear, they’re just worried it’s not popular.”
Within the pro-life movement, some who hold that life begins at conception have long been deeply uneasy with IVF, which in typical practice results in the creation of a number of surplus embryos that will never be implanted. In their own lives, many go out of their way to avoid that route: looking into adoption instead, or taking the slower, more expensive path of fertilizing and implanting only a single embryo at a time.
But Trump is right: This is a position held only by a fraction even of the subset of Americans who oppose legal abortion. Before Dobbs, it was easy for the GOP to let the pro-life movement take the lead when it came to setting their abortion-policy agenda—after all, none of that policy was ever going to become law. Expect more and more daylight between party and movement in the months and years ahead.
—Andrew Egger
How Far Will Nikki Go?
At 3:52 p.m. yesterday, I received a surprisingly interesting fundraising email from Nikki Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney.
“We all know the odds, but we also know the stakes,” the memo begins. “And we are FIRED up! That’s why today, we fight on!”
It continues:
What we saw during Saturday’s primary election was South Carolina’s frustration with our country’s direction.
It’s what Americans are feeling across the country.
We’ve seen that a large number of voters in Republican primaries want an alternative to Trump.
And we have one.
Nikki is still fighting because you deserve a choice.
It goes on in that vein. Fundraising emails are designed to say whatever works to raise money. One shouldn’t overinterpret them. But reading through this email, I was struck by one thing:
It barely mentions the fact that Nikki Haley is a Republican.
The only use of the word “Republican” is this: “We’ve seen that a large number of voters in Republican primaries want an alternative to Trump.” It’s a statement about the primaries Haley’s been competing in, rather than one asserting any loyalty to the party or distinctive Republican beliefs.
There is one mention of “party”: “Nikki is our last hope to get our country and our party back on track.” But that’s it. The letter never says what most fundraising letters in primary contests would say: “Here’s why Nikki would be a better Republican standard bearer,” or “Please help Nikki win the Republican nomination.”
Meanwhile, there are repeated invocations of America and Americans:
“Nikki is still fighting because America deserves better.”
Nikki is “continuing to do whatever it takes to . . . make sure every American is given a choice this election.”
And “We must get it right this election! We’ll keep fighting for America—and we won’t rest until America wins!”
Consider that last one: “We won’t rest until America wins.” This doesn’t sound like a fundraising appeal from a candidate for the Republican nomination. It sounds more like a fundraising appeal from a candidate who’s thinking of going on to a third party run.
Haley has argued in recent speeches that America can’t win if the choice is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Here we’re told that she “won’t rest until America wins.”
So maybe there’s no rest for the weary Republican runner-up? Maybe the Republican primaries have become a prelude for Haley claiming to offer a better choice to America through an independent or third party run?
Or maybe I’m overinterpreting this fundraising appeal. I report, you decide.
—William Kristol
Catching up . . .
Biden says he’s hopeful for a Gaza ceasefire within a week: New York Times
Macron doesn’t rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine: Politico
Russia warns NATO of certain war if West puts troops into Ukraine: Politico
Biden to meet with congressional leaders ahead of government shutdown deadline: NBC News
Yellen urges Israel to restore economic ties to West Bank: New York Times
Union households favor Biden—but by closer margin than in 2020, poll finds: NBC News
Manhattan DA Bragg requests judge impose gag order on Trump during hush money case: Fox News
Quick Hits: ‘If he wins, all this other stuff gets taken care of’
Don’t miss Marc Caputo’s latest MAGAville—hot off the presses this morning—on how Donald Trump is grappling with his campaign’s financial hurdles:
Trump’s legal issues have impacted his money picture in multiple ways: (1) They made some big donors nervous about giving to him, depriving him of money he otherwise would have had sooner. (2) They led some big donors to give to Haley instead, thereby prolonging her campaign. (3) They armed Trump critics with the argument that he wants the RNC to pay his legal bills. (4) The big financial judgments against him have made cash more scarce for Trump—which in turn make it harder to fill gaps by self-funding (which Trump has always been loath to do and hasn’t done this cycle).
“He’s much more engaged than I’ve ever seen him at this, and that’s because he has to be,” said one Republican familiar with the campaign’s finances. “The numbers right now aren’t good, but we should raise a billion dollars or $900 million at this pace now. We’ll have enough.”
The Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations with Trump, was with the former president at the February 16 Mar-a-Lago fundraiser after Justice Engoron’s fine and said Trump “was clearly peeved. He knew it was happening. The number was clearly a lot. But he was strangely in a good mood. You or I would be in therapy if something like that happened to us, but Trump compartmentalizes and the business stuff doesn’t matter as much. What matters is becoming president. He thinks he’s going to win. And he believes that if he wins, all this other stuff gets taken care of.”
Trump has reported having enough cash and assets to pay off the fines, and he briefly fumed to others that he viewed the rulings against him as a way to take all of his easier-to-get money.
“That’s how much cash I have. They’re trying to take my cash away,” Trump told one.
My niece Allie flew to DC yesterday to testify before a Senate Committee (Budget Committee on the No Rights to Speak Of: The Economic Harms of Restrictions on Reproductive Freedom today at 10 am, Wednesday on her experience having to leave her state (TN) to get an abortion. Her fetus was not viable and by the time she arrived at Planned Parenthood, she discovered it was dead and had to get an emergency procedure. Tennessee is a no exception state. She is running for state legislature in her district but this trip is not campaign related, she has become and advocate for women in her state. She is also suing her state as part of a class action.
https://www.tiktok.com/@.allie.phillips/video/7340287813377772846
https://clarksvillenow.com/local/allie-phillips-announces-candidacy-for-democratic-nomination-to-state-house-district-75/
At any rate, I am very proud of her. She has turned a very devastating life experience into a positive action to benefit others.
I’ve benefited from what I’ve learned today. I’ll try to pass it on.
For a moment of self-indulgence, I was raised a Methodist in Texas, but my deepest (Christian) values came from books that taught me empathy.
Books that are often banned today.