Trump pledges free IVF to boost American births

Donald Trump has promised to provide free access to IVF if he wins a second term in the White House.
“Your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan on Thursday night.
“Because we want more babies, to put it very nicely. And for this same reason we will also allow new parents to deduct major newborn expenses from their taxes, so that parents that have a ­beautiful baby will be able. We’re pro-family.”
IVF, in vitro fertilisation, treatments can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a single round and many women require multiple rounds — with no guarantee of success. Few insurance plans in the US cover fertility treatments, according to the Department of Health and Human Services estimates.
The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology said its member clinics performed 389,993 IVF cycles in 2022. Given the average costs, that would come to $7.8 billion for one year.
Trump did not elaborate on how his administration would cover the cost or whether he would seek congressional backing for his proposal.
The former president has been criticised by Democrats for his role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional nationwide right to abortion.
A wave of restrictions imposed across Republican-led states after the court’s decision has threatened access to IVF as well as abortion. At least 23 bills across 13 states have been introduced aimed at establishing fetal personhood, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
The Alabama state supreme court ruled this year that embryos created via IVF should be considered people. Many IVF ­cycles result in embryos being discarded, which could be considered murder in the state under the new ruling. It led the largest fertility clinics there to pause their IVF treatments.
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The issue has galvanised Democratic voters. Recent polling suggests Kamala Harris has made gains among female voters in battleground states by backing abortion rights. The Trump campaign has come to believe that his association with anti-abortion activists could hurt him in the November election.
Anti-abortion groups criticised Trump’s pledge. Katy Faust, founder of the anti-abortion organisation Them Before Us, wrote: “Green-lighting abortion and subsidising IVF (responsible for more embryonic destruction than Planned Parenthood). There are no pro-life presidential candidates in this race.”
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Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign, questioned the sincerity of Trump’s new pledge.
“His own platform could effectively ban IVF and abortion nationwide. Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren’t stupid. Because Trump overturned Roe v Wade, IVF is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country. There is only one candidate in this race who trusts women and will protect our freedom to make our own health care decisions: vice-president Kamala Harris.”