Republicans will ban in-vitro fertilization (IVF) if Donald Trump is elected, following the Southern Baptist Convention’s vote on Wednesday to condemn the practice, a political scientist predicts. IVF involves manual fertilization of eggs, some of which are destroyed if they’re not implanted. Some who believe life begins at conception argue this constitutes murder.
“The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., with over 50,000 churches and over 14 million faithful, and has become a political force in recent decades,” Reuters reports. “The resolution called on ‘Southern Baptists to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation.”
Largely white and Republican, the Southern Baptist Convention is the second-largest Christian denomination in the U.S. after Catholics. “The move may signal the beginning of a broad turn on the right against IVF, an issue that many evangelicals, anti-abortion advocates, and other social conservatives see as the ‘pro-life’ movement’s next frontier — one they hope will eventually lead to restrictions, or outright bans, on IVF at the state and federal levels,” Politico reported Wednesday.
“Southern Baptists are the base of the Republican Party,” writes professor of political science David Darmofal. “Parties are responsive to their bases. The Southern Baptist Convention just voted to oppose IVF. Republicans will ban IVF if Trump wins.”
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, over 86,000 babies, about 2.3%, were born via IVF in 2021, largely due to infertility. America already has a declining fertility rate, meaning that more people are dying than are being born, according to the CDC.
“The general fertility rate in the United States decreased by 3% from 2022, reaching a historic low,” CDC reports. “This marks the second consecutive year of decline, following a brief 1% increase from 2020 to 2021. From 2014 to 2020, the rate consistently decreased by 2% annually.”
The U.S. Senate on Thursday will vote on legislation to protect IVF. Other critics are sounding the alarm as well. “When Sen. Katie Britt and Sen. Ted Cruz say IVF is safe and Dems are fear-mongering, she’s lying, and today the SBC told on her,” Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Kyle Whitmire wrote.
“I could care less if Southern Baptists oppose the science of IVF that has helped so many people to have families that they otherwise would not have,” noted neuroscientist Bryan William Jones. “You be you. What I do care about is that Southern Baptists are working politically to PREVENT families from having access to IVF.” The Biden campaign Wednesday afternoon posted a video of Donald Trump praising the SBC and vowing, “I’ll be with you side by side.”