Anti-abortion advocates expressed relief that President Donald Trump steered clear of mandates for health insurance companies to cover in vitro fertilization, but many are still disappointed in his plan to increase access to assisted reproductive technologies.
Abortion opponents with moral opposition to IVF have been bracing for this announcement since Trump signed an executive order in February directing the Domestic Policy Council to look into ways to lower the out-of-pocket costs for IVF.
Trump and members of his Cabinet on Thursday afternoon unveiled the long-awaited plan to decrease the costs of IVF by altering the way it is covered under employer-sponsored health insurance plans, as well as by lowering the costs of hormone injection drugs used in the IVF process.
Trump’s action does not create a coverage mandate through Obamacare, which many anti-abortion advocates feared would be the mechanism the White House would choose. Instead, it allows employers the flexibility to offer fertility care as an additional benefit for an extra cost, similar to vision or dental insurance.
Trump said during the Oval Office briefing on Thursday, “You can’t get more pro-life than this,” but anti-abortion advocates expressed frustration with the president on social media following the announcement.
Kirstan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, said on X that this marks the “second disappointment in two weeks from his team,” the first being the approval of the new generic abortion pill.
“While it could have been worse, it’s still a reflection that they aren’t totally on board,” said Hawkins. “I’m thankful there’s no new healthcare mandate forcing coverage for the destructive IVF industry, but IVF, as it’s practiced, still destroys countless humans in the embryonic stage.”
Conservative opponents to abortion often argue that embryos created during the IVF process that are not used end up either being destroyed or indefinitely frozen. Religious opponents of IVF, particularly those of the Roman Catholic faith, also argue that IVF circumvents the joining of two persons through the procreation process.
An analysis from the Heritage Foundation found that 73% of IVF clinics in the United States offer testing for sex-selection, as well as selection for hair, eye, and skin color, which conservatives argue is borderline eugenicist.
Ryan Anderson, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Council, characterized the policy on X as “the least bad that we could have hoped for,” because it was not a coverage mandate, “but least bad is still…bad.”
“The entire thrust is to make something unethical more widely practiced. Such a policy is itself unethical. IVF as practiced today entails massive killing and/or freezing of embryonic human beings,” wrote Anderson.
Lila Rose, president of the anti-abortion group Live Action, called for Trump to “reverse this” decision, citing another Heritage Foundation statistic that only approximately 7% of embryos conceived via IVF make it to live birth.
“Trump encourages employers to add insurance coverage for IVF—enabling the commodification of children. Babies won’t be healthier. IVF kids face higher risks of lifelong health issues, & the process itself discards countless embryos—real human lives—deemed ‘unfit,’” wrote Rose.
SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannefelser told the Washington Examiner that her organization believes that embryos should not be destroyed. She instead endorsed restorative reproductive medicine, an approach that aims to treat the underlying causes of infertility without creating embryos outside of the womb.
“Any policy in this space, from the White House or Congress, must treat the lives of the smallest children in the highest regard,” said Dannefelser. “We support focusing on restorative fertility treatments to help couples struggling with infertility, and urge high ethical and medical standards for the IVF industry.”
