Tammy Duckworth — U.S. senator, a wounded Iraq war veteran, and mother — used her personal experience to take direct aim at former president Trump, calling him a “five-time draft-dodging coward” whose “anti-woman crusade has put other Americans’ right to have their own families at risk.”
After ten years of struggling with infertility, Duckworth told delegates at the Democratic National Convention that her daughters would never have been born without access to reproductive care and in-vitro fertilization.
She said Trump and Republicans will not “stop at banning abortion. They’ll come for IVF next.”
Duckworth claimed that a recent Alabama state court decision that embryos are considered children is proof. However, the state legislature later passed a law protecting IVF procedures.
“My struggle with infertility was more painful than any wound I earned on the battlefield,” Duckworth said. “So, how dare a convicted felon like Donald Trump treat women seeking health care like they’re the ones breaking the law?”
Trump cemented the Supreme Court’s rightward move when he appointed three justices during his term. That shift included the decision to overturn a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
“It’s simple: Every American deserves the right to be called “mommy” or “daddy” without being treated like a criminal,” Duckworth said.