Last week, Donald Trump announced a new measure aimed at making it easier for companies to offer their employees coverage for fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization. The proposal would allow employers to create dedicated supplemental fertility insurance plans, separate from regular health insurance. The White House has presented this measure as part of a pro-family and pro-natality agenda, intended to reduce financial barriers for couples who wish to have children and expand access to fertility treatments.But can these policies truly be considered pro-family and pro-life measures?
Trump’s Push to Expand IVF
This is not the first time the president has sought to expand access to assisted reproductive technologies. The first key moment came after the Alabama Supreme Court’s February 2024 ruling[1], which held that frozen embryos could be treated legally as children under the state’s wrongful-death statute. The decision opened the door to potential legal liability for fertility clinics over the destruction of embryos and led some centers to temporarily suspend their services. Trump reacted quickly, publicly backing the development of state legislation that ultimately granted legal protection to in vitro fertilization in Alabama. During the presidential campaign, in August 2024, he pledged that, if he returned to the White House, the government or insurers would pay for IVF treatments, even describing his party as “the party for IVF”[2].
Once back in the White House, Trump turned that rhetoric into administrative action. On February 18, 2025, he signed Executive Order 14216, entitled “Expanding Access to In Vitro Fertilization”[3]. The order was framed around the goal of reducing economic barriers and facilitating access to in vitro fertilization. The next step came in October 2025[4], when the Administration announced a two-part initiative: first, discounts on certain fertility drugs through TrumpRx, a program promoted by the Trump Administration to facilitate access to these treatments through direct agreements with pharmaceutical companies such as EMD Serono; and second, the development of a pathway for employers to offer fertility benefits separate from regular health insurance.
The proposal announced in May 2026[5] appears to be the next regulatory step in that plan. Under this new rule, companies could offer dedicated supplemental coverage for IVF-related fertility treatment, much as many already offer dental or vision insurance. Employer-sponsored IVF coverage already exists in the United States, although it remains far from universal: approximately one quarter[6] of U.S. companies with 200 or more employees cover the procedure. Companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Meta offer substantial fertility-treatment coverage, in many cases through specialized platforms such as Progyny. In addition, insurers such as Aetna or Cigna may include infertility and in vitro fertilization coverage depending on the plan selected by each company and the applicable rules in each state.
Because several rounds of IVF are often needed to achieve a pregnancy, the financial cost can be very high: a single round costs between $12,000 and $30,000. On average, more than $61,000 is spent to achieve a live birth or to determine that further cycles are no longer medically or financially reasonable[7]. The average lifetime maximum among employers that offer this coverage is around $20,000 per employee[8].
The Ethical Implications of In Vitro Fertilization
In vitro fertilization usually begins with ovarian stimulation (hormonal medication) so that the ovaries produce multiple mature eggs in a single cycle. The eggs are then retrieved and fertilized in the laboratory with sperm to form embryos. The embryos are cultured for a few days and, depending on the circumstances, are transferred to the uterus or frozen (cryopreserved) for later use. Several embryos can be generated from a single retrieval and transferred in batches at different times. If a transfer does not result in pregnancy, or if the couple wishes to have another child later on, subsequent transfers can be carried out using another batch of embryos, thereby avoiding the need to repeat the entire stimulation and retrieval process each time.
It is difficult to know how many embryos are created on average in an IVF cycle, because most public statistics do not count embryos created; instead, they report outcomes as live births per egg-retrieval cycle and usually use cumulative rates that include transfers carried out within the year following that retrieval. In the United States, SART’s national summary reports 431,746[9] total cycles in 2024. Using the conservative assumption adopted by The Heritage Foundation (10 embryos created per cycle)[10], this would imply approximately 4.32 million embryos created in 2024 in the United States. Comparing this figure with the national total of 100,158[11] babies born through IVF in 2024 suggests that approximately 2.32% of the estimated embryos would result in a live birth, while the remaining embryos would not. However, these statistics do not allow us to determine how many are lost in the process and how many remain in storage. Of those embryos that remain in storage, some will be transferred in the future; some will be discarded; others will be donated for research; and many will come to be considered “abandoned” or “unclaimed” in practice[12] (because of a prolonged absence of instructions or contact from the parents, or because of noncompliance with the terms of the agreement), leaving their custody and eventual disposition in the hands of the clinic in accordance with its policies and the applicable legal framework. The scale of the frozen-embryo phenomenon is sobering: in the United States, various estimates place the number of cryopreserved embryos at more than 1.5 million[13].
Another major ethical concern is embryo selection. IVF is often accompanied by preimplantation genetic testing —“preimplantation genetic diagnosis”— which allows embryos to be analyzed before transfer. In some cases, this is presented as a way of avoiding serious diseases, but the underlying logic can easily expand to include criteria of quality, preference, or discardability. More than 75% of fertility clinics offer preimplantation testing to detect genetic problems, and 73% offer testing for sex selection or traits such as hair, eye, or skin color[14]. This point connects directly with the risk of eugenics. If embryos can be selected on the basis of the absence of disease, sex, or physical characteristics, the practice fosters a mindset in which some lives are deemed preferable to others. The very structure of the process facilitates a relationship of control over nascent human life. The child is no longer seen primarily as a gift, but as the result of a technical decision, a biological selection, and an economic investment.
There are also medical risks associated with IVF. Although the scientific literature continues to debate how far these risks can be attributed to the assisted reproductive technology itself —and not to associated factors such as the parents’ underlying infertility, advanced maternal age, or prematurity— numerous studies have linked assisted reproduction to a higher incidence of certain health problems in children conceived through these techniques, including certain congenital heart defects[15], some childhood cancers[16], and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism[17].
Catholic Doctrine on In Vitro Fertilization
The Church acknowledges the suffering of married couples facing infertility and recognizes the goodness of their desire to build a family[18]. But it distinguishes between the legitimate desire for a child and an alleged right to obtain one by any means. A child is not something owed to the parents, but a person to be welcomed as a gift[19].
From the beginning, and consistently to the present day, the Church has firmly maintained that every human life must be respected and protected from the moment of conception[20]. The Magisterium does not claim authority over the experimental sciences, but it does have the responsibility to offer moral principles for evaluating the ethical implications of techniques applied to human life[21]. At the moment of fertilization, scientific evidence indicates that the existence of a new human being begins, with its own biological identity and a continuous developmental trajectory. Consequently, Catholic doctrine teaches that the State and society have a duty to defend the fundamental right to life of every innocent human being, rooted in his or her nature and in creation in the image of God[22]. The value of human life does not depend on its stage of development, its state of health, or the circumstances of its conception: from beginning of its existance, the embryo must be recognized and treated as a person, never as a means, an object of selection, or a disposable object[23]. Consequently, the deliberate destruction of human embryos inherent in in vitro fertilization constitutes a grave violation of the right to life of an innocent human being. Likewise, the possibility of selecting embryos according to genetic criteria or of producing more embryos than the number of children desired introduces a logic of domination and instrumentalization over human life in gestation[24].
The Church, for its part, does not disapprove of reproductive medicine as such. On the contrary, it accepts interventions that assist the conjugal act in achieving its natural end. What it rejects are techniques that replace the conjugal act and place the origin of human life under technological control[25]. There is an inseparable connection between the unitive and the procreative meanings of the conjugal act[26]. Just as contraception separates sexual union from procreation, in vitro fertilization does the opositee: it separates procreation from conjugal union[27]. In this sense, in vitro fertilization introduces a logic that shifts the origin of human life from the realm of spousal love to that of technical production in a laboratory.
In response to Trump’s February[28] and October[29] 2025 measures to expand access to IVF, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops acknowledged the suffering of couples experiencing infertility and the goodness of their desire to have children, but warned that the answer cannot be a technique that destroys countless human lives and treats embryos as disposable material. The U.S. bishops further insisted that every human life, born or unborn, is sacred, and that children have the right to be conceived through the natural and exclusive act of marital love, not through a commercial technological process.
Ultimately, the desire to have a child is profoundly human, and the Church understands the real suffering of those who experience infertility. But precisely because the child possesses his or her own inviolable dignity, not every means of attaining that end is morally acceptable. Human life must be respected from the moment of conception, regardless of the circumstances in which it came into being, its stage of development, or its viability. The response to infertility cannot be built on the instrumentalization of human life.
For this reason, presenting the measures promoted by Trump as “pro-family” or “pro-life” policies is deeply contradictory. Although they seek to respond to a real problem, they ultimately reinforce an industry based on practices incompatible with the respect owed to every human person from the very beginning of life. There are also more humane and ethical alternatives aimed at addressing the root of the problem: greater research into the causes of infertility, restorative reproductive medicine, including treatments based on Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM)[30], better diagnoses, support for motherhood and fatherhood, and easier pathways to adoption. Instead of accepting embryo production and selection as inevitable, a true family policy should promote solutions that protect both the legitimate desire of parents and the inherent dignity of every human life.
From a faithful investing perspective, these policies also have important implications for investors. The Trump Administration’s push to expand assisted reproduction not only supports the growth of insurers, pharmaceutical companies, fertility clinics, and biotechnology companies directly linked to this sector, but also potentially affects companies across the economy. More and more companies are adding in vitro fertilization coverage to their employee benefits packages, raising significant ethical concerns regarding the protection of human life. For this reason, at Altum Faithful Investing, we help investors evaluate not only the products and services a company offers to its customers, but also its corporate policies and employee benefits.
[1] LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., Supreme Court of Alabama, (Ala. 2024), decision of February 16, 2024.
[2] ABC News, “Trump calls himself ‘father of IVF,’ doubles down on ‘enemy within’ remarks in town hall,” October 16, 2024.
[3] The White House, “Expanding Access to In Vitro Fertilization,” Presidential Actions, February 18, 2025.
[4] The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Lower Costs and Expand Access to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and High-Quality Fertility Care,” October 16, 2025.
[5] U.S. Department of Labor, “Proposed Rule on Excepted Fertility Benefits,” May 10, 2026,
[6] KFF, “Annual Family Premiums for Employer Coverage Rise 7% to Average $25,572 in 2024, Benchmark Survey Finds,” KFF, October 9, 2024.
[7] Emma Waters, “Why the IVF Industry Must Be Regulated,” The Heritage Foundation, March 19, 2024.
[8] Lindsay Bower, “Delivering Efficient and Affordable IVF Coverage to Employees,” Mercer, March 6, 2025.
[9] Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), “Preliminary National Summary Report for 2024 (All SART Member Clinics),” SART CORS Online.
[10] Emma Waters, “Why the IVF Industry Must Be Regulated,” The Heritage Foundation, March 19, 2024.
[11] Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), “Preliminary National Summary Report for 2024 (All SART Member Clinics),” SART CORS Online.
[12] Kathryn J. Go, Phillip A. Romanski, Pietro Bortoletto, Jay C. Patel, Serene S. Srouji, and Elizabeth S. Ginsburg, “Meeting the challenge of unclaimed cryopreserved embryos,” Fertility and Sterility 119, no. 1 (January 2023).
[13] Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “The Alabama Supreme Court’s Ruling on Frozen Embryos,” February 22, 2024.
[14] Emma Waters, “Why the IVF Industry Must Be Regulated,” The Heritage Foundation, March 19, 2024.
[15] European Society of Cardiology (ESC), “Babies born after fertility treatment have higher risk of heart defects,” September 27, 2024.
[16] Gao Song, Cai-qiong Zhang, Zhong-ping Bai, Rong Li, and Meng-qun Cheng, “Assisted Reproductive Technology and Risk of Childhood Cancer Among the Offspring of Parents With Infertility: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” JMIR Cancer, vol. 11, 2025.
[17] Mohammad A. Sakran et al., “Relationship Between Assisted Reproductive Technology and Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Psychiatry International, vol. 6, no. 4, 2025, art. 156, DOI.
[18] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae, no. 16.
[19] Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2378.
[20] Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2270.
[21] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, no. 1.
[22] Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Infinita, nos. 1 and 22, April 2, 2024.
[23] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, I, no. 1. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Infinita, no. 22.
[24] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae, no. 15. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, II, Introduction.
[25] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, II, B, no. 5.
[26] St. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, nos. 12 and 14.
[27] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, II, B, no. 5.
[28] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), “IVF Destroys Human Life, Bishops Urge Ethical Alternatives,” February 20, 2025.
[29] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), “Bishop Chairmen Respond to Administration’s Announcement on Expansion of Access to IVF and Fertility,” October 17, 2025.
[30] Restorative Reproductive Medicine: An Ethical Approach to Fertility — The National Catholic Bioethics Center.
