By JILL COLVIN, JOEY CAPPELLETTI and THOMAS BEAUMONT

POTTERVILLE, Mich. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump says that, if he wins a second term, he wants to make IVF treatment free for women, but did not detail how he would fund his plan or how it would work.

“I’m announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment,” he said at an event in Michigan. “Because we want more babies, to put it nicely.”

IVF treatments are notoriously expensive, and can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a single round. Many women require multiple rounds and there is no guarantee of success.

The announcement comes as Trump has been under intense criticism from Democrats for his role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion in the country.

The decision is expected to be a major motivator for Democrats and women this November, and was a major theme of the party’s national convention last week as well as Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech as she accepted her party’s nomination.

In response, Trump has been trying to present himself as more moderate on the issue, going as far as to declare himself “very strong on women’s reproductive rights.”

In an interview with NBC ahead of the event, Trump also suggested that he will vote to repeal Florida’s six-week abortion ban, which limits the procedure before many women even know they are pregnant.

Trump, in the interview, did not explicitly say how he plans to vote on the ballot measure when he casts his vote this fall. But he repeated his past criticism that the measure, signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last year, is too restrictive.

“I think the six weeks is too short. It has to be more time,” he said. ”I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.”

Trump had previously called DeSantis’ decision to sign the bill a “terrible mistake.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement after the rally Thursday that Trump “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida” known as Amendment 4 and that he “simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short.”

His comments nonetheless drew immediate reaction from those who oppose abortion rights, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who said she had spoken with Trump after his speech.

“He has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4. President Trump has consistently opposed abortions after five months of pregnancy. Amendment 4 would allow abortion past this point. Voting for Amendment 4 completely undermines his position,” she said, adding that, “anyone who believes in drawing a different line” still “must vote against Amendment 4, unless they don’t want a line at all.”

In his speech, Trump also said that, if he wins, families will be able to deduct expenses for caring for newborns from their taxes.

“We’re pro-family,” he said.

Trump has held multiple conflicting positions on abortion over the years. After briefly considering backing a potential 15-week ban on the procedure nationwide, he announced in April that regulating abortion should be left to the states.

In the months since, he has repeatedly taken credit for his role in overturning Roe and called it “a beautiful thing to watch” as states set their own restrictions.

Trump, however, has also said he does not support a national abortion ban, and over the weekend, his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said he would veto such legislation if it landed on his desk.

“Donald Trump’s view is that we want the individual states and their individual cultures and their unique political sensibilities to make these decisions because we don’t want to have a nonstop federal conflict over this issue,” Vance said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Trump first came out in favor of IVF in February after the Alabama state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, briefly pausing treatment and sparking national backlash.

Trump has since claimed the Republican party is a “leader” on the issue, even as at least 23 bills aiming to establish fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states so far this legislative session, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. That kind of legislation, which asserts that life begins at conception, could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.

In a statement, Harris’ campaign said Trump shouldn’t be believed.

“Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren’t stupid,” said Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Sarafina Chitika. “Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country. There is only one candidate in this race who trusts women and will protect our freedom to make our own health care decisions: Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILYs List, which works to elect women who support abortion rights, called Trump’s proposal “disingenuous and unserious.”

“Congratulations to Donald Trump for realizing that his position and his record on abortion are wildly unpopular, particularly with women who will decide this election,” she wrote. “But rather than give him credit for a disingenuous and unserious proposal that contradicts his own GOP platform, we’ll credit him for something he actually did: overturning Roe v. Wade, ending abortion access for millions of women across the country, and jeopardizing reproductive freedom for all of us.”

Trump made the IVF announcement during a campaign swing to Michigan and Wisconsin as he ramps up his battleground state travel heading into the traditional Labor Day turn toward the fall election.

Trump is intensely focused on recapturing states he won in 2016 but lost narrowly in 2020 as he continues to adjust to the reality of his new race against Harris.

Trump’s first stop was Alro Steel in Potterville, Michigan, near the state capital of Lansing, where he railed against the Biden administration over inflation.

“Kamala has made middle class life unaffordable and unlivable and I’m going to make America affordable again,” he charged. It was his third visit to the state in the past nine days and second this week after a speech to the National Guard Association in Detroit on Monday.

Later, he will visit La Crosse, Wisconsin, for a town hall moderated by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who endorsed him in Detroit. It will be Trump’s first visit to Wisconsin since the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which ended three days before Biden dropped out of the race and made way for Harris.

Along with Pennsylvania, which Trump will visit on Friday, these three Midwestern states make up a northern industrial bloc Democrats carried for two decades before Trump won them in 2016. Biden recaptured them on his way to the White House in 2020.

Trump and Vance have blitzed the battleground states in recent weeks, with Vance in both states this week as well.

___

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Christine Fernando contributed to this report from Chicago.

Originally Published: August 28, 2024 at 10:11 p.m.