The End of IVF? What Trump’s Latest Move Means for Your Family’s Future

IVF, fetal personhood, and the future of reproductive healthcare in America

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It has been a doozy of a week. I know we all have whiplash and this is part of Trump’s strategy. This administration wants to throw so much at us all at once that we can’t focus. They want us exhausted and tapping out. That’s why I want to constantly take a step back and help break down what is happening.

And today I want to talk about what is happening with IVF. Right now abortion, trans rights and IVF are all linked in the same legal battle.

One thing we knew from Project 2025 is that conservative activists didn’t take the past four years off. They didn’t spend it merely plotting to get Trump reelected. The legal wing of the movement specifically spent it outlining what Trump would do when he got into power.

Or maybe more properly put - what they would do with Trump’s power.

A second thing we know is that with Trump, one should always focus on what he does, not what he says.

And the Trump Administration has taken the first step towards taking away your ability to access IVF.

As first reported by

Jessica Valenti

, in Trump’s anti-trans Executive Order the terms female and male are defined as starting “at conception.”

So how does this relate to IVF? Let me explain:

During the campaign Trump claimed that if elected, his administration would get IVF covered by insurance. Trump has a habit of saying things he thinks will deliver votes (the wall!) without any intention of following through, and this was a great example.

It’s obvious why Trump said this. 86% of Americans believe IVF should remain legal and he could have lost swing voters (mostly women) over this issue. I said at the time that there was a zero percent chance that a Republican Congress would support a nearly $8 billion entitlement program. And even if they did, I didn’t (and still don’t) think such a mandate would hold up under the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision overturning Chevron. (see more, here.)

Another very clever message Trump focused on during the campaign was that he would not sign a national abortion ban. Let me tell you, the conservative girlies in my DMs did NOT let me forget it. All of this worked. According to exit polls 45% of women voted for Donald Trump. This represented an increase from 2020, when 42% of women supported Trump. In 2024, Gen X women went particularly hard for Trump, with exit polls showing 50% voting for him

And the amazing thing is, the entire anti-choice movement stayed in line. They didn’t yell at Trump (much). They didn’t create a massive movement to force him to take a public position in their favor.

They stayed in line and got him elected.

Why?

Because they knew he was just talking out of his ass. They knew if they just got him elected they would get what they really want—to eradicate abortion and IVF. If you’ve followed me for a while, you know my argument has always been that Conservative activists have been working towards one goal: 14th amendment fetal personhood.

Conservatives spent billions (yes, with a B) via Leonard Leo to stack the Supreme Court with Justices who are more committed to ideology than to America. And with that they got the overturning of Roe. Now they will get so much more.

And it all starts with fetal personhood.

Fetal personhood is a legal term of art. It means that the legal definition of the word “person” begins at conception/fertilization (maybe implanted, maybe not!). The conservative legal strategy is to use impact litigation to get the Supreme Court to decide that this is the meaning of the word “person” in the 14th Amendment. Once that is deemed part of the constitution, lots of other chips fall into place. You don’t need to pass an abortion ban, murder statutes suffice.

Republicans have been filing a bill in Congress to establish 14th Amendment fetal personhood since 1997. Every 2 years all bills must be filed anew, this Congress the fetal personhood bill is HR. 722. That being said, this change will be made through litigation not legislation.

In Project 2025, they made clear this goal:

In the Republican National Platform they stated this as well:

Notice that they endorse fetal personhood while also saying birth control and IVF should remain accessible. But let’s discuss what really happens if fetal personhood laws are instituted:

The way IVF became temporarily inaccessible in Alabama was because of a state constitutional fetal personhood amendment that was interpreted to make fertility clinics legally liable for wrongful death if anything happened to an embryo. No fertility clinic was willing to engage in IVF under this type of legal liability. In response, the Alabama legislature amended their laws to say, essentially, murder is excusable in this instance. Originally, that bill included a sunset clause, publicly admitting that it was only a temporary reprieve. Due to public pressure this was removed in the legislation that was passed. However any legislative bell rung can be unrung.

And fundamentally if the position of the Republican party is that a fertilized egg is a living human being, how could IVF be allowed to continue? It will be considered murder.

When the Supreme Court makes a decision that says the 14th Amendment to the Constitution includes a fertilized egg as a person, will legislatures pass laws allowing this type of murder? Or will running a fertility clinic and being a fertility doctor become economically unfeasible? Will inability to access the basic medicines required for these procedures make it impossible for anyone to provide the procedure? Will states like Texas use bounty laws and try to reach across state lines to legislate outside of their borders?

At the bare minimum, a constitutional fetal personhood law would require the implantation of every single embryo, we would likely see laws regulating how many you can make, and the costs would rise to astronomical degrees as the legal liability grows.

I have often talked about The Alliance Defending Freedom because they are, I think, the most powerful group set on reshaping america. They issued a press release applauding Trump for this Executive Order. They are an “impact litigation” organization. And a very very successful one. They are who brought the Dobbs case that overturned Roe. Impact litigation is the practice of bringing lawsuits intended to affect societal change. The architects of social change seek out clients, judges, legislation and cases that will help them shape legal jurisprudence to their own moral views. Writing and lobbying for legislation that they will then litigate is a key component of this work. And that’s what we are seeing with the Trump Executive Order. It doesn’t itself make the change but it helps them bring and win the suits that will.

A law firm also hired by Elon Musk for his ‘free speech’ litigation brought a lawsuit last fall in Minnesota, Womens Life Care Center et al v. Ellison et al. It was filed on behalf of several health centers, doctors and potential mothers in which they argued that Minnesota’s abortion laws are in violation of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. This case is now working its way up the chain, and could reach the Supreme Court during the Trump Presidency. So we will most likely see these decisions litigated in very real time and with a lot of haste. The Trump anti-trans executive order will be used as a supporting argument in this litigation.

In the Dobbs majority opinion, Alito made clear that he was already thinking about fetal personhood:

“Our opinion is not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth. The dissent, by contrast, would impose on the people a particular theory about when the rights of personhood begin. According to the dissent, the Constitution requires the States to regard a fetus as lacking even the most basic human right—to live—at least until an arbitrary point in a pregnancy has passed. Nothing in the Constitution or in our Nation’s legal traditions authorizes the Court to adopt that “‘theory of life.’”

This isn’t hysterical prognostication - this is a reality constructed by very very smart, very well resourced lawyers, lobbyists and communicators.

Trump and the Republican party spent this election cycle gaslighting the American people into thinking that women will continue to have access to contraception and IVF once their legal regime takes effect, but their actions show that is not the plan.

If you’ve read this far I imagine you are saying - BUT EMILY WHAT DO I DO?!

Understanding what is actually happening is an action. Seeing what is really happening, being able to talk about it, and gaining a better understanding of the bigger picture on how change happens in this country is critical to being a part of making that change. Right now the Trump administration is issuing a firehose’s worth of EO’s. It’s so much information that it’s impossible for any one person to take in and process. If you want to figure out actions *right now* I suggest buying a copy of Democracy in Retrograde, which helps you find your path. If you want to donate to legal organizations litigating against the Trump EO’s, Oath’s

Brian Derrick

has created an easy way to do so.

When so much is happening all at once it is easy to fall into despair and throw up our hands. It is easy to feel like we can’t do anything because there is too much to do. That is what they want. So take a breath. Focus on one thing at a time. I am here to help.