'Digging in': GOP rep festoons walls outside his House office with anti-IVF posters

27 June 2024

The walls outside the congressional office of Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Montana) are now loudly proclaiming his opposition to a common and safe medical procedure.

On Thursday, Fox News reporter Liz Elkind tweeted a photo of the front door of Rosendale's office in Washington, D.C., in which four large posters slamming in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments can be seen. One of the posters claims that "IVF destroys more life than Planned Parenthood."

"Matt Rosendale digging in on anti-IVF stance with posters outside of his office," Elkind posted to X (formerly Twitter).

The assertion that IVF "destroys life" is based on the view that discarding a frozen embryo is akin to murdering a living human being. This is apparently a view Rosendale holds, as one of the posters displaying his campaign's logo has text that reads: "If you believe that life begins at conception as I do, there is no difference between an abortion and the destruction of an IVF embryo."

Under this logic, then anyone who works at an IVF clinic who disposes of an unused embryo as medical waste — which is a standard practice for embryos not used for pregnancy or donated for stem cell research — is guilty of murder. The same could also be said for any pregnant individual who miscarries, which happens in up to 20% of all pregnancies according to the Mayo Clinic.

Even among Republicans, the position that disposing of unused embryos is equivalent to murder is not mainstream orthodoxy. A February poll by Axios and Ipsos found that only 31% of Americans (49% of Republicans, 17% of Democrats and 30% of independents) agree that frozen embryos are the same as people, and that those who dispose of them should be "legally responsible." And among self-described Republican respondents, only 18% said they "strongly support" that position.

Rosendale "digging in" on his anti-IVF position could be due to him not having to worry about getting reelected, as he announced in March that he would not be seeking a third term in Congress due to death threats against him and his family.

"I have been forced to have law enforcement visit my children because of a death threat against me and false and defamatory rumors against me and my family," Rosendale said at the time. "This has taken a serious toll on me, and my family."

The Montana Republican's decision to voluntarily end his political career is a sharp about-face, given that before issuing that statement, he was running for the Republican nomination in the Big Sky State's U.S. Senate race. However, Rosendale appeared to have been targeted by fans of businessman Tim Sheehy — the Republican nominee endorsed by former President Donald Trump during the primary — prompting him to end his Senate campaign. The death threats against Rosendale and his family continued after he declared his intent to instead seek a third term, which led him to announce his resignation before the 119th Congress gavels in next January.

Sheehy is running against incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), who is seeking a fourth six-year term. Tester remains the last remaining Democrat holding a statewide office in the deep-red state. Despite the letter next to Tester's name, he remains popular among Montanans, and currently holds a slight advantage over Sheehy according RealClearPolling data.

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