Posted on 10/17/2025 9:49:09 AM PDT by Morgana
President Donald Trump unveiled a plan yesterday to slash the costs of IVF and fertility treatments, fulfilling a campaign pledge to make it more accessible to American families eager to welcome new children into the world.
While more babies would normally sound like a good thing to pro-life Americans, two top pro-life advocates say it’s not good news because the IVF process includes killing babies at their earliest stages of life.
As LifeNews reported, the White House initiative, building on a February executive order directing federal agencies to recommend ways to protect IVF access and cut out-of-pocket expenses, aims to ignite a baby boom by easing financial barriers for couples battling infertility.
The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury said they plan to propose new rules to provide “additional ways that certain fertility benefits may be offered as a limited excepted benefit” and are considering changes to how supplemental health plans qualify.”
But two pro-life advocates criticized the IVF expansion.
CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt criticized Trump’s efforts to promote IVF, warning that IVF destroys human embryos, thus resulting in the death of innocent human lives. She also called on the administration to look into the growing fields of medicine that address the root causes of infertility without compromising on the dignity of unborn life.
“As Catholics who believe every human life begins at conception and deserves protection, we are deeply disappointed by the White House’s decision to promote IVF, a practice that routinely destroys or discards embryonic children in the name of ‘treatment,’” Reinhardt said immediately after the announcement. “The longing for a child is holy, but a child can never be the product of a laboratory process that treats life as disposable.”
“We urge President Trump to reconsider this approach” Reinhardt continued, “and instead fully commit to the far better path already hinted at in his policy: addressing the root causes of infertility. Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM) offers real, ethical care by diagnosing and healing the underlying conditions that prevent conception, rather than bypassing the body through an expensive, low-success, morally unacceptable procedure like IVF.”
“America should invest in medicine that heals, not in an industry that creates life only to discard it,” she said. “True compassion respects both the dignity of the parents and the lives of their unborn children, every single one of them.”
Also, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, called the announcement the “second disappointment in two weeks” from Trump – on the heels of the FDA approving the generic version of the abortion pill.
“While it could have been worse, it’s still a reflection that they aren’t totally on board,” Hawkins said. “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.”
“It’s time to find real solutions that help families grow and flourish without killing Life in the process,” Hawkins added.
In March, Trump embraced the cause with enthusiasm, declaring himself the “fertilization president” while endorsing assisted reproductive services as a vital tool for growing families.
The forthcoming framework includes two key measures designed to foster more births.
First, it would enable employers to offer fertility coverage as an optional benefit, akin to vision or dental plans, allowing workers to opt in and receive support for treatments that could lead to the joy of parenthood. Second, the administration plans to strike a “most favored nation” drug pricing deal with a pharmaceutical company to dramatically lower the cost of hormone-stimulating medications essential to each IVF cycle.
This drug pricing strategy echoes a May executive order Trump signed to align U.S. prices with lower international rates, with recent agreements already reached with companies like Pfizer and AstraZeneca to reduce costs on other medications. By extending this approach to fertility drugs, the plan promises to make IVF viable for far more couples, potentially adding countless little ones to American homes.
The announcement underscores Trump’s pro-natalist vision, a cornerstone of his administration’s push to reverse declining birth rates and strengthen the nation’s future through larger, thriving families.
Yet the effort highlights ongoing pro-life concerns. Often more babies re made in the IVF process than a couple plans to birth and they are often left frozen, aborted or destroyed.
While many celebrate the potential for more lives brought into existence, pro-life advocates have urged “new guardrails” on IVF, citing ethical concerns over the creation and occasional discarding of surplus human embryos.
The February order, signed amid fanfare at Mar-a-Lago, set a 90-day deadline for cost-reduction proposals that lapsed without a comprehensive public rollout. Thursday’s disclosure marks a concrete step forward, though details remain under wraps until the official reveal.
With roughly one in four employers already providing some IVF coverage, the new employer-opt-in model could broaden access significantly, empowering businesses to support their workers’ dreams of building families.
It’s always been clear that Trump is more populist than social conservative, and social conservatives have differing views on IVF.
My step-DIL just had twin girls from IVF. They tried everything else. Yes, a few didn’t take before these but how is that different from “naturally” fertilized eggs not implanting in the uterine wall or miscarrying for whatever reason?
And here’s hope that having children will temper her liberal views :)
That's how I see the IVF argument. We should not get caught up in that and we should instead accept the 99% win and make sure our win is implemented. I'd rather us pro-lifers make sure the leftists courts are unable to block pro-life state legislation, and maybe win the culture battles in the pro-abortion states.
Trump is correct in this case. Moment of conception is a Catholic doctrine, this is why Catholics cannot use birth control. But the Protestant majority does not follow that doctrine, as evidenced by their own doctrine approved use of birth control. IVF is a blessing to couples that have fertility problems and it’s a good thing.
It’s very unfair and inaccurate to blame all infertility on abortion. Many who have never had an abortion have difficulties.
The problem with my son's wife was that the eggs would be fertilized, but never attach, so they went out with the next period. IVF is the reason I have five grandkids instead of two.
Trump got rid of Roe V Wade
My fellow Catholics want more from him. We no longer promote abortion as a country. Planned parenthood is cut off from our tax money
What goes on in IVF is against natural law and against Catholicism. Where is the Pope on this? Where are parish priests from the pulpit on this?
Trump is not our ayatollah.
It’s silly. We are not a theocracy
stanne wrote: “What goes on in IVF is against natural law and against Catholicism.”
Since 10-20% of clinically recognized pregnancies end in miscarraiges, it follows then that natural pregnancies are also against natural law and catholicism.
The difference is the non-implantation and miscarriage are natural processes, while intentionally creating a human and killing it when it is no longer useful is murder. It's like the difference between a born person dying of cancer, versus being shot by his parents.
It's much more than a distraction to those little humans that are being killed.
IVF supports the philosophy that babies are a commodity. You can’t have such a philosophy outside of utilitarian ethics. Those ethics don’t end with a seemingly beneficial,voluntary choices such as IVF. They end with involuntary actions like government ordered euthanasia of the disabled.
It is also reduces the full nature of both men and women to being seen as secondary to their reproductive ability. Some will not understand that liberal abortion laws do the same thing.
That makes no logical sense to me
It's not just a Catholic thing. It is a scientific fact that human life begins at conception. This has been known without a doubt for at least the last 50 years, At the point of conception everything that is necessary to develop into a human being is present, including its own unique DNA. Allowed to complete its natural development, it will not turn into a kidney or lung or an undifferentiated mass of cells, but a human being.
The real point is whether the destruction of human life (from IVF, for example), is any different than the murder of a born person. Since science now unequivocally tells us that at conception it is a human being, that should be the starting point for any consideration of this question, not the aftermath.
As I said in another thread on this topic, when we speak of human zygotes, embryos, fetuses, babies, children, teenagers, adults, middle-aged, and old age, these are all simply descriptions of the various stages of human development. Some occur on one side of the birth canal, others on the other side. Some may have been conceived under less-than-ideal circumstances. Some may be imperfect or unwanted by their parents or by society. But all are living human beings. All have an equal human dignity. None should unjustly be deprived of life.
So where do we draw the line at the taking of an innocent human life? What difference does location or stage of human development make? If we lower ourselves to countenance taking the life one category of people for our own convenience and satisfaction, who is next?
Before it can become a legal issue, the moral issue has to be addressed. Before there were written laws against pre-meditated murder, there was a general consensus that it was wrong and this was the basis of the law against murder.
Even though it seems clear to me and others that based on the scientific evidence it is rational to conclude that human life begins at conception, it is an unfortunate fact there is doubt or disbelief about this in a large segment of the population. Is it a human life, or isn't it? If it isn't, you can do whatever you want with it. If it is, it should be treated like all other human life. If one simply does not know, it should be given the benefit of the doubt of being human until proved otherwise. It would be akin to seeing a human shaped bag in the middle of the road. If there's a chance there's a human being in there, do you stop or go around it, or just run over it because you don't know? If you are going to err, it's always wise to err on the side of life.
Not a Catholic but I think the moment of conception is the logical starting point of a human life. It is the point at which a baby will be born unless something goes wrong. My hope is that by making IVF less expensive people will only fertilize eggs they will implant and give the same chance as the naturally conceived. My fear is cheaper IVF will simply expand the current practices which involve freezing and/or discarding embryos.
Congratulations on the twins! I hope you understand that those of us against IVF are still thrilled by the new life that results.
The problem is that IVF takes into human hands that which belongs to God. Scientists are creating life knowing that most of that life will be malformed and die or be destroyed. Living human beings are being treated as experiments, knowing that most will die or be frozen with no determined end.
I was fairly indifferent to IVF until I heard an aquaintance happily describing his and his wife’s experience. Multiple eggs were fertilized, and those that successfully reached a certain embryo stage were “graded”, and “bad quality” embryos were immediately destroyed. Medium and high quality embryos were used or frozen, and the couple were given the choice as to what to do with the others. All but the highest quality were destroyed. This story was told to me after the birth of the 2nd IVF baby, when there was still one frozen high-quality embryo left. My aquaintence was lamenting what to do with that one because he didn’t “want another child”.
I had to leave the room at that point because I was afraid of what I might say. (You already have another child!) He was so nonchalant about whether or not to allow his purposfully created, apparently perfect embryo to survive simply because he didn’t want it that I was floored.
For anyone who believes that life begins at conception, IVF is simply unacceptable. And scientifically, life begins at conception. There is no question that a new human being is formed when the new DNA combination is made at conception and begins to divide by its own living power. The fact that that is happening in a petri dish, under a microscope doesn’t change the humanity of the result.
It is a complete unique human, it is living, it is growing, and when conceived by God’s design it will continue to live unless something disrupts its development. The fact that a technician is grading living embryos and routinely destroying them is downright Frankinsteinian.
The statistics you can most easily find point to the percent of successful pregancies after implantation, which can vary but seem to average around 65%. That doesn’t sound so bad, but that means more than 30% die. What is harder to find is how many petri dish fertilizations go wrong and don’t properly divide past a few cells. Were these early humans? Maybe not, but horrifically, maybe so. That percentage also doesn’t include those embryos destroyed as “inferior”.
Miscarriages are an entirely different story. They are not intended or brought about selectively for reasons of convenience. Accidents happen, many people die “before their time”. That doesn’t justify intentional killing.
Every IVF pregnancy comes at the cost of destroying multiple human lives.
Food for thought, I hope.
Love,
O2
Tell Trump.
I’ll pass the job onto the Holy Spirit.
Thanks, I was hoping someone would bring up that it is not just a religious dogma but scientific fact.
stanne wrote: “That makes no logical sense to me”
It is natural for some embryos (10 to 20%) to fail to go to term?
How does that differ from IVF where some embryos fail to go to term?
I wish someone would. And in terms outlined in Posts 13 and 15.
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