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Anti-vaccine commentator and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who former President Donald Trump said will have a “big role in healthcare” if Trump wins, recently appeared in an ad for CatholicVote urging people to support the Republican nominee. RFK Jr. was helping a group that works to oppose IVF, which it has labeled “evil” and “immoral.”
CatholicVote is a conservative organization that is supporting Trump. The organization’s president has appeared in right-wing media outlets, including
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It released an October 24 video featuring Kennedy, who stated that “President Trump has promised to take bold action on our economy, on the border, and on restoring children’s health” and said, “I hope you’ll join me in supporting Donald Trump.”
In addition to supporting Trump, CatholicVote also works to end IVF. It has a supposed explainer page on its website that criticizes IVF as unethical. It writes:
At first glance, IVF seems innocuous – simply a procedure to help parents conceive a child. However, the morality and ethics of the procedure begin before the embryos are created.
To help stimulate egg production, women have to take various steps to increase the fertility of their eggs and facilitate ovulation. During retrieval, eggs are removed from the ovaries with a suctioning device or needle that harvests more than one egg at a time, with no guarantee that any of the eggs will be healthy or able to be used to create embryos.
For men, the process is different. Sperm can be collected at any time and even frozen for use at a later date and is often collected through unorthodox means.
The page adds: “During fertilization and implantation, embryos that are considered to be unviable are either ‘discarded,’ used for scientific research, or frozen indefinitely. These standard practices violate the dignity of the human person, whose life begins at conception.”
The group then urges readers to reconsider IVF.
CatholicVote also shares numerous anti-IVF materials on its website, including “Catholic Woman Who Struggled With Infertility for Years: IVF Is Not the Answer” and “Lila Rose Praises Decision of Alabama Judge to Affirm Life at Fertilization.”
In one piece, CatholicVote attacked former first lady Michelle Obama for promoting and using IVF. One section of the piece was titled “Suffering leads to evil means to create God’s children.” The piece added: “IVF is an immoral process which treats humans like chattel and often ends in their deaths. It is therefore important that pro-life advocates be ready to articulately and compassionately stand against Obama’s contribution to the anti-life problem which IVF represents.”
As a candidate, Kennedy made contradictory remarks about abortion. And while saying he is not against IVF, he claimed that there are more important factors to consider regarding “the alarming decline in fertility” and that “this issue is so much bigger than IVF.” He also picked running mate Nicole Shanahan, who called IVF “one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.”
Former President Donald Trump is promoting a right-wing political group that supports a total abortion ban after the group’s leader Brian Burch dishonestly
on Fox News as he promoted the group’s new swing-state ad attacking Harris. In contrast, Catholic Vote praised Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as a “historic moment” and called Vance a “hero.”
Burch claimed on Fox that Harris has “an unmistakable record of deep hostility and hatred for Catholics and what Catholics believe,” a charge he repeated in an email Monday. Responding to Trump cheering on Catholic Vote on social media, the group tweeted, “We’re proud to expose Kamala’s vile hatred of Catholics.”
Burch is lying, of course. Harris serves as vice president to the second Catholic U.S. president. Burch tends to demean the faith of Catholics who disagree with the group’s political positions by producing “dossiers” on them or using square quotes when identifying them as “Catholic.” Back when Barack Obama chose Biden as his running mate, Burch called the selection of a pro-choice Catholic “a slap in the face to Catholic voters.”
Catholic Vote postures as a political organization representing American Catholics, but most American Catholics disagree with the group’s support for a total ban on abortions. In fact, 61 percent of U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Catholic Vote supported Ohio Republicans’ democracy-limiting effort to stop voters from enshrining the right to an abortion in the state’s Constitution. Catholic Vote supported the Arizona 1864 total abortion ban that went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and Burch opposed the law that overturned it.
Similarly, most U.S. Catholics support marriage equality for same-sex couples, but Catholic Vote does not, and the group regularly attacks progressive Catholic political leaders who support abortion rights or LGBTQ equality.
The group has energetically backed Trump. When Trump was elected in 2016, Burch wrote that “Justice Scalia must be smiling from Heaven.” Burch has expressed disappointment that Trump has publicly distanced himself from a national abortion ban, but has also expressed confidence that a new Trump administration would be staffed with anti-abortion activists who would promote “pro-life policies.”
Tags: Brian BurchDonald TrumpAnti-AbortionAnti-ChoiceAnti-LGBTQMarriage EqualityCatholic Vote