COLUMBIA, South Carolina – Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) wants the GOP to follow in former President Donald Trump’s footsteps in calling out the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling on in vitro fertilization. The decision has created significant controversy in the political arena, but voters seem confused on the issue entirely.
The court declared cryogenically frozen embryos are “extrauterine children.” Donald Trump condemned the ruling during the Black Conservative Federation Gala in Columbia, South Carolina.
“We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder,” Trump said. “That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America.”
The Washington Examiner exclusively spoke to Donalds after the event, asking if the rest of the GOP should follow in Trump’s footsteps.
“Yes. Yes, they should,” Donalds said. “IVF is critical to so many families trying to build that family nucleus. Close friends of mine, and my wife, they used IVF. It has been a great thing for them and their family. We should make sure that’s available to everybody.
Trump called out Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for initially coming out in favor of the ruling.
“You saw what happened,” Trump said. “It’s become sort of a big statement, and so many politicians are calling me ‘thank you for that statement.’”
“Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley said in support of the ruling. “When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that.”
Haley has since walked back her original statement.
Lakeeta Blake, 42, who is a Trump supporter and the director of community impact at the Raising Up the Low Country Foundation, did not like Haley’s back-and-forth on the subject.
“I feel like Nikki Haley… kind of backpedals on a lot of different things,” Blake said. “The fact that Trump supports it, I feel this is something that is good for women, for families. I mean, children are the future!”
Many are concerned the ruling will hurt families seeking to conceive a child via IVF, a process of fertilizing a mother’s egg outside of the womb. The process extracts eggs from a woman, fertilizes them with sperm from a partner or donor, and allows them to grow for five days in a petri dish. At this point, they can be tested to see which ones have the best chance of growing when implanted inside the woman’s uterus. The most viable embryos are then frozen.
Shay Faraday, 33, who is the Frederick Douglass Foundation’s engagement director, said she hadn’t heard of the case and wanted to do more research but knows she is anti-abortion.
“As a conservative, a lot of us are pro-life; I’m very pro-life,” Faraday said. “As far as abortion goes, it is just outrageous, and it’s just evil. In my opinion, it’s murder.”
Bill Strenkert, 58, was standing in line at the Rock Hill Donald Trump rally when he was asked if he agreed with the ruling.
“I do agree with that,” Strenkert, who is a retired nurse, said. “I’m a Christian, and life begins at conception.”
Carol Crabtree, 72, is a retired mental health specialist and a Democrat who spoke to the Washington Examiner at a polling location in Charleston, South Carolina. She, and two other Democrats, had just voted for Nikki Haley in the Republican primary. All three were outraged to hear about the Alabama ruling and Haley’s initial reaction.
“That is ridiculous. Totally.” Crabtree said. “We have so many other things to worry about besides Republicans digging up crap like that to make the wedge deeper between us.”
Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in his opinion, “these types of policy-focused arguments belong before the Legislature, not this Court. It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy.”
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In response to the significant backlash, lawmakers in both chambers of the Alabama legislature have filed bills to clarify the state law related to embryos created via IVF.
Gabrielle M. Etzel and Mabinty Quarshie contributed to this report.