Ted Cruz and Katie Britt have dug a trap for their fellow Republicans and are urging their colleagues to jump on in. The two senators (Cruz from Texas and Britt from Alabama) have introduced the “IVF Protection Act,” which would punish any state that tries to ban, or perhaps even regulate, IVF. This rightly earned immediate pushback from conservatives pointing out that it is a terrible policy idea.
It is also political folly. Every minute Republican leaders spend talking about IVF is a minute they are not talking about inflation, immigration, and other issues voters actually care about. But instead of addressing voters’ top concerns, Cruz and Britt have taken the bait set by Democrats and the media and have shifted the focus back toward IVF. Democrats must be thrilled. After all, there is no chance of any state banning IVF.
Yet Republicans such as Cruz and Britt have needlessly allowed the media to stampede them into a panic. They seem convinced they will lose moderate suburban women if they don’t go all-in for IVF, and so this bill is a transparently political attempt to disarm Democrat lines of attack. This might be the dumbest political strategy since Hillary Clinton decided to ignore Wisconsin.
Democrats’ desire to campaign on IVF should be seen as a sign of desperation, just like their attacks on Justice Alito for flying the “Appeal to Heaven” flag — which dates back to the American War for Independence — at his beach house. These are chaff meant to divert attention away from Biden making Americans
