Trump pledges IVF funding on election trail

Donald Trump has announced that Republicans will ensure IVF for 'all Americans that need it', either through public funding or insurance mandates.

The former US President who is standing for re-election in November made the announcement in an interview with NBC News in Michigan, while on the election trail. He said: 'So we are paying for that treatment [...] All Americans that get it, all Americans that need it. So we are going to be paying for that treatment or we are going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.'

He told the rally in Michigan, according to the Times newspaper: 'Your government will pay for – or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for – all costs.

'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 has become a key election issue ahead of the 2024 US elections in November after a decision by the Alabama Supreme Court to legally designate frozen embryos as children in the state, brought IVF treatment there to a standstill in February 2024 (see BioNews 1228). Both Republicans and Democrats rushed to pass legislation both at state level and in the US Senate, to protect the status of IVF. Two bills, both designed to protect IVF, failed to pass the Senate in June 2024 (see BioNews 1243).

Experts had voiced fears that the US Supreme Court's decision in 2022 to overturn the right to abortion in the USA, could impact IVF (see BioNews 1159). Others have expressed surprise that Trump is promising public funding of fertility treatment despite the Republican Party's repeated attempts to reappeal the Affordable Care Act, introduced by the Obama administration in 2010 to make healthcare more accessible.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told MSNBC that Trump was adapting his messaging on IVF and abortion according to the audience he was speaking to: '[...] when he's talking to the overwhelming majority of Americans, who very much oppose that radical approach to abortion and IVF, he tries to change his tune, and then is shocked when each side now is starting to call him out on that.'

Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign for the Democrat Party, said that 'Donald Trump's own platform could effectively ban IVF and abortion nationwide', adding: '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.'

Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump's running mate for the election in November 2024, said in a separate NBC News interview he was frustrated 'that reproductive rights is a whole suite of pro-family things that Republicans are way better at than Democrats. And the media always focus on abortion. But, you know, we've actually done a lot of things to try to promote fertility treatments to people who are struggling with it.'