New Hampshire GOP Senate Nominee: ‘We’ve Got to Do Something’ About In Vitro Fertilization

Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc signaled that he’s open to limiting in-vitro fertilization, and would support a federal national abortion ban, during a taped conversation by Democratic operatives earlier this week in New Hampshire. “It is a disgusting practice,” Bolduc said of fertility clinics disposing of embryos in audio obtained by Vanity Fair. “I don’t like that practice at all, and I think it’s a separate issue, and we’ve got to do something about it.”

Bolduc is running to unseat Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), the former governor who flipped the seat in the 2016 election. He’s a typical right-wing kook: Bolduc signed onto a letter with current and former military officers that said Trump won the election “and damn it, I stand by [it],” and also said the question of abortion law “belongs to these gentlemen right here, who are state legislators representing you. That is the best way I think, as a man, that women get the best voice.”

On his path toward giving women the best voice, Bolduc told the Democratic operative that he’s open to a federal abortion ban. “Put it this way, I am not going to say no, right?” he said. Then he backtracks. “Cause I have said no, no on an abortion ban at the federal level, but these other things, we’ve got to look into them. I don’t like that practice at all and I think it’s a separate issue and we’ve got to do something about it.”

Doing something about IVF and embryo disposal is another stop on the road toward fetal personhood status—something that already exists in Georgia. Bolduc’s hesitancy about one facet of fertility clinics is a part of a bigger play by anti-abortion activists. “Ultimately, we believe that all human life is valuable and deserves our legal protection from that beginning moment of fertilization, whether that occurs through normal means or through IVF,” Rebecca Parma, senior legislative associate with Texas Right to Life, told a local Texas news outlet in July. “And so certainly we want those embryos who are created through the IVF process protected.”

Fertility treatments and birth control are the next frontier for anti-abortion activists, particularly in states where abortion has been legislatively discarded. Bolduc, despite presenting himself as a maverick politician who answers to no one in the “Live Free or Die” state, is just another cog in the misogynistic, anti-abortion political machine.