3 days ago
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The fertilization president
Donald Trump has clearly been spending far too much time with Elon-I-offer-my-sperm-to-everyone-who-crosses-my-path-Musk. It seems like the creepy billionaire’s insemination obsession has rubbed off on Trump: the legally defined sexual predator is now calling himself “the fertilization president”.
Trump proudly unveiled this new nickname for himself on Wednesday at a White House event celebrating Women’s History Month. Someone should probably report this event to the DEI police, by the way, because I am pretty sure the president himself made acknowledging women’s history verboten. Earlier this year, for example, it was reported that a number of federal agencies were banning celebrations related to Martin Luther King Jr Day, Black History Month, Women’s History Month and other “special observances” because they didn’t want to fall foul of Trump’s wide-ranging executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion.
This particular event, however, appears to have been permitted because the curated crowd consisted of the sort of women Trump approves of: very white, and very deferential. The White House has uploaded a number of videos of the attenders gazing adoringly at Trump – who once vowed to be a protector of women “whether the women like it or not” – as he rambled on.
“We’re going to have tremendous, tremendous goodies in the bag for women, too, the women between the fertilization and all of the other things that we’re talking about. It’s going to be, it’s going to be great,” Trump told the crowd. When the crowd started laughing appreciatively, Trump said “fertilization” again, before adding: “I’m still very proud of it, I don’t care. I’ll be known as the fertilization president, that’s not bad, that’s not bad. I’ve been called much worse. Actually, I like it, right? I like it.”
To be clear: a cat didn’t accidentally walk over my keyboard while I was writing this. This is a precise transcription of what Trump said. The man has always been alarmingly incoherent – and yet with much of this, the press still seems intent on editing his wild ramblings into something that makes them seem more normal. Poynter has termed this “sanewashing”.
I’m afraid I can’t seem to find what was in the goody bags that were given out at the Women’s History Month event. (Elon Musk’s phone number, perhaps?) Nor can I tell you exactly what was going through Trump’s head as he was waxing lyrical about fertilization – amid digressions about the price of eggs and gas – at an event meant to celebrate women’s achievements. But, to put the fertilization remarks in a little more context, he brought them up after boasting that he’d signed an executive order expanding access to (often very expensive) fertility treatments like IVF.
This boast is technically true: in February, Trump signed an executive order directing the domestic policy council to make recommendations to “aggressively” reduce the costs for accessing IVF. However, this was really nothing more than a PR move. As the Guardian’s Carter Sherman noted at the time: “[T]he lack of direct action on IVF in Trump’s … order is striking, especially in the context of Trump’s other executive orders, which have issued sweeping – and potentially illegal – mandates … The order does not, for example, mandate private employers cover IVF in the way that they are required to cover contraception.”
His (totally meaningless) executive order was meant to fulfil promises Trump had made on the campaign trail, where – in a brazen attempt to appeal to female voters – he supported making IVF more affordable. He also declared himself the “father of IVF” last October, while also admitting he’d only just found out what the procedure was. During, his debate with Kamala Harris, he similarly proclaimed he had “been a leader on IVF, which is fertilization”.
Will Trump go any further than giving himself weird nicknames, and actually do something meaningful to increase access to IVF? Possibly. On the one hand, he has to tread carefully around IVF because it’s a sensitive topic for many anti-abortion zealots who believe frozen embryos should be legally considered children, and who have been pushing to severely curtail access to the procedure. On the other hand, however, Trump does have Musk, one of the world’s most passionate pro-natalists, whispering in his ear about how the US needs more babies.
If Trump does make IVF more accessible, it certainly won’t be more accessible for everyone. Just look at Viktor Orbán’s Hungary – a rightwing autocracy that many conservatives in the US look to as a blueprint for what they want to achieve at home – and the pro-natalist policies there. Hungary has a state-run IVF system and offers generous fertility and parental benefits to a certain subset of people. As Mother Jones has explained: “[T]he closer you look at Hungary’s eligibility requirements for family benefits, the more clearly you see the kind of babies Orbán wants to populate his boom: not just Hungarian nationals, but children from married, heterosexual, middle-income and up Hungarian nationals with stay-at-home moms.”
My wife and I spent a huge amount of money on fertility treatments to have our child and I know a lot of people who have made enormous financial sacrifices to access IVF. Ordinarily, I’d cheer on any attempts to broaden access to it. But, amid his wider war on reproductive rights, Trump’s declaration that he’s the “fertilization president” feels menacing. Women, it seems Trump is going to protect you, whether you like it or not! And the fertilization president is going to ensure you have more babies, whether you like it or not.
The Trump administration pulls funding from a study to protect pregnant women from domestic violence
It was characterized as a “DEI study”, apparently.
Proposal to automatically give babies mother’s surname ignites row in Italy
Dario Franceschini, a former culture minister from the centre-left Democratic party, has said such a law would “right a historic wrong”. Predictably, the proposal has not gone down well.
The misogynist agenda of ‘Maha moms’
Amanda Marcotte looks at how the Make America Healthy Again movement is actually designed to push women out of the workforce and back into the kitchen.
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Florida bill to allow teens to work overnight hours on school days moves forward
Looks like the US is making child labour great again.
Daily Wire host: ‘Statistically, 100% of people who have succeeded in business have been men’
This is a quote from Michael Knowles, who clearly does not Knowles what he is talking about.
New mums are being ‘strongly encouraged’ to take regular exercise and get more sleep
“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,” says the Guardian’s Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett.
Masked Ice agents detain Tufts graduate student
The video of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national on a valid F-1 student visa, getting taken by Ice is terrifying. She is accosted on the street by masked figures; it looks like a kidnapping. Ozturk’s crime? It seems to be that she’s a Muslim woman who co-wrote an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Palestinians. The US government has made it very clear that it will go to extreme lengths to police speech about Israel.
Kids under fire: an investigation into Israeli soldiers shooting children
Doctors, including the US surgeon Mark Perlmutter, have been saying for a year that Israeli snipers are deliberately targeting children in Gaza. Now Al Jazeera has a devastating new documentary investigating the issue. I wish I had some hope that it might make a difference but mass Palestinian death and suffering has been normalized. Israel has blocked all humanitarian aid into Gaza over the last few weeks, for example, and roughly 1 million kids are without basic necessities yet again.
The week in pawtriarchy
I suggest you don’t look up why they are there (the answer is grim) but season 2 of the Apple TV series Severance features a lot of goats. According to Gwendoline Christie, they were chaotic little divas on set. “Goats don’t care about being on television,” she quipped to People. “Goats also have an incredible self-confidence. They feel comfortable to eat clothes whilst you’re wearing them.” Never work with children or animals, they say. And absolutely never work with kids.
