Donald Trump, IVF’s Deadbeat Dad

America’s fertilization president is stepping away from the plate.

By Danielle Han | August 4, 2025 | 2:54pm

Trump Administration

Trump signing an Executive Order on IVF in February 2025. Photo: Getty Images

On his campaign trail in 2024, Donald Trump impetuously (and kind of weirdly) declared: “I want to talk about IVF. I’m the father of IVF.” Nearly one year later, so-called dad-of-the-year and self-named “fertilization president” is nowhere to be found (except for his daughter’s worst nightmares)–and according to a new report by the Washington Post, his White House is quietly backing away from his pledge. Well, where’d you go, pops?

Apparently, between a rock and a hard place. Having promised in August of last year that either the government would foot the bill, or require insurance companies to pay for the procedure, America’s daddy-in-chief now risks pissing everyone off. “How do you do this without burdening health insurers? That’s the key question they’ve been wrestling with,” one administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained to the Washington Post. “It appears for now that they’re not going to go there.”

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There are also legal and political constraints to think about. To make IVF an essential health benefit, the president will first need a go-ahead from Congress, but so far there’s no plan in sight to get lawmakers to draft up such a bill. GOP legislators are especially unlikely to take up on the issue, what with 2026 midterm elections looming around the corner–and what worse a bullet in one’s foot than prioritizing the wellbeing of American bodies? In fact, the president has had his one big, beautiful chance to push IVF provisions through Congress–and he not only missed it, but pulverized Medicaid in the process.

On top of all of it, White House officials are reportedly asking about the concept of “restorative reproductive medicine” (eek)–an idea supported by the Heritage Foundation (EEK), which suggests that the way to treat infertility is to improve women’s overall health (EEEEEK). As the American Society for Reproductive Medicine states: it is a misleading term “which can be used to promote ideologically driven restrictions that limit patient care.”

The White House has yet to release any official statement about IVF coverage. The last time it did was through an executive order in February, saying it was requesting policy recommendations for “protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment,” with a 90-day deadline. But flash forward, and there’s been only radio silence since the deadline passed in May.

Still, the president won’t easily shrug off his pledge (or his paternal responsibilities). IVF stands as a largely partisan good, and roughly 50 million Americans who still rely on Obamacare could stand to receive coverage if he fulfills his campaign promise. And the last thing the country needs is another dad who doesn’t deliver.