WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President Donald Trump announced Oct. 16 a policy proposal to increase access to in vitro fertilization, including issuing guidance urging employers to offer fertility benefits directly to their employees.
Trump previously campaigned on requiring the government or insurance companies to pay for IVF, which is a form of fertility treatment opposed by the Catholic Church on the grounds that it often involves the destruction of human embryos, among other moral and ethical concerns.
“In the Trump administration, we want to make it easier for all couples to have babies, raise children and start the families they always dreamed about,” Trump said in comments at the White House.
Trump also announced what he called a deal to lower the cost of Gonal-F, a fertility medication used in IVF cycles.
Access to in vitro fertilization supported by Trump
As a candidate for president in 2024, Trump pledged his administration would protect access to IVF but would have either the government or insurance companies cover the costly treatment. His pledge came after a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that found that frozen embryos qualified as children under the state law’s wrongful death law. The legal ruling, while limited in scope, aligned more with the position the Catholic Church has staked out against the legalization of IVF. Alabama lawmakers later enacted legal protections for IVF.
“I’m asking all employers to make these new fertility benefit options available to their employees immediately,” Trump said. “The initiatives I’ve just announced are the boldest and most significant actions ever taken by any president to bring the miracle of life into more American homes.”
In February, Trump signed an executive order that aimed “to ensure reliable access to IVF treatment, including by easing unnecessary statutory or regulatory burdens to make IVF treatment drastically more affordable.” That order sought policy recommendations within 90 days, a deadline that passed months prior to Trump’s Oct. 16 announcement, previously raising questions about whether he would follow through on his campaign pledge.
Comments on the policy proposal
In a statement, the March for Life said the organization “appreciates that President Trump has heard and is responding to so many Americans who dream of becoming parents.”
“The desire for parenthood is natural and good. Children are a blessing. Life is a gift. The White House’s announcement today is rooted in these core truths,” the statement said. “Here’s what else we know to be true: every human life is precious – no matter the circumstances. We continue to encourage any federal government policymaking surrounding IVF to prioritize protecting human life in its earliest stages and to fully align with basic standards of medical ethics.”
It added, “We welcome the Administration’s commitment to making groundbreaking advancements in restorative reproductive medicine more accessible and available to American women. RRM aims to resolve rather than ignore underlying medical issues, increasing health and wellness while also restoring fertility, and responding to the beautiful desire for children while avoiding any collateral loss of human life.”
In comments at the White House event, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Catholic and member of the Kennedy political family, said Trump was “doing God’s work” by “giving millions of Americans a chance to have babies.”
Asked by a reporter about those who have religious objections to IVF, Trump replied, “I don’t know about the views of that. I’m just looking to do something because — pro-life, I think this is very pro-life. This is — you can’t get more pro-life than this.”
Church teaching opposes in vitro fertilization
But IVF is among the fertility treatments to which the Catholic Church objects in its teaching. The 1987 document from the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith known as “Donum Vitae” or “The Gift of Life,” states the church opposes IVF and related practices, including gestational surrogacy, in part because “the connection between in vitro fertilization and the voluntary destruction of human embryos occurs too often.”
Issued by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, the teaching named the “right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death” and “the child’s right to be conceived, brought into the world and brought up by his parents” as behind the church’s moral objections to those practices.
It emphasized, “The political authority consequently cannot give approval to the calling of human beings into existence through procedures which would expose them to those very grave risks noted previously.”
“The possible recognition by positive law and the political authorities of techniques of artificial transmission of life and the experimentation connected with it would widen the breach already opened by the legalization of abortion,” it added.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 238,126 patients underwent IVF treatment in 2021, resulting in 112,088 clinical pregnancies and 91,906 live births.
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
