Donald Trump said Thursday that in a second term he would ask the government or insurance companies to cover the cost of in-vitro fertilization for “all Americans in need” – though he declined to say how he would pay for it.
Reproductive rights have become a major weakness for the Republican White House nominee since the Supreme Court eliminated federal protections for access to abortion in 2022.
Trump’s vulnerability was further compounded when an Alabama court ruled in February that frozen embryos created through IVF should also be considered children.
Trump said he supported IVF, as many clinics had halted their care following the Alabama decision.
“I’m making a major statement today announcing that under the Trump administration, your government will pay all costs associated with IVF treatment — or your insurance company will be obligated to pay,” he said at a rally in Potterville, Michigan.
He did not provide any details about how his proposal would work, or how it would be funded, but when previewing the announcement in an interview with NBC ahead of the event, Trump said one option would be to make insurance companies pay “under an order.”
Experts say a 2022 US Supreme Court ruling giving states the final say on personhood questions will pave the way for sweeping effects on other areas of reproductive health, including IVF.
Very few Americans have insurance plans that cover fertility treatments in any case, and the cost of $20,000 or more for an 18-month round of IVF treatments is too expensive for many.
The former president said that in a second Trump term, new parents would be able to deduct “major newborn expenses” from their tax bill, adding that “we are pro-family.”
Though Trump has expressed support for IVF since the February ruling, he has taken a variety of ideological positions on abortion and has now come to the conclusion that legalities surrounding the procedure should be up to the states.
He told NBC News in 1999 that he was very much in favor of abortion, but in 2011 he announced that he was pro-abortion and in 2016 he said that women who have abortions should be “punished in some way.”
Trump has taken credit for appointing Supreme Court justices who have gutted federal abortion rights, and indicated Thursday that he might vote against a referendum in Florida this fall that seeks to overturn his home state’s six-week ban.
“I want more than six weeks,” he told the Daily Mail. “I think six weeks is a mistake. And I will express that soon, but I want more than six weeks.”
Trump and his election rival, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, are campaigning in key states this week as they enter the most intense phase of the campaign.
At a rally in Savannah, Georgia, Harris told her supporters that if Trump wins, he would sign a national abortion ban into law.
“Our fight is for the future. And it’s a fight for freedom. Like a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body, not have her government tell her what to do,” she said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
