Mike Johnson Doesn’t Want Military Members to Have Access to IVF

The House is scrambling to finalize this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—a waffle-brained freak who monitors porn intake with his son—is trying to further restrict reproductive rights and contradict Trump’s campaign promise to improve access to IVF. Given that Trump’s bragged about being the “father of IVF” before, that begs the question… does this make Mike the creepy uncle!?

According to Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Johnson has been slithering behind the scenes to remove from the annual defense spending bill a provision that would mandate health care coverage for assisted reproductive services—such as IVF—for all active-duty service members. “It is repugnant that Speaker Mike Johnson is single-handedly working behind closed doors—and against the President’s promise—to rip this provision away from our heroes and their families,” Duckworth told MS Now. “Given how much we already ask them to sacrifice, how dare Mike Johnson demand that they sacrifice their dreams of having a family?” 

Hey Trump, are you really willing to let Mike Johnson stop you from keeping your promise to cover IVF for our military families?

Thank you for your attention to this matter. pic.twitter.com/Y7QcPY0PTY

— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) December 4, 2025

Typically, NDAA bills are finalized by the end of the calendar year, and the text of the legislation was anticipated to be finalized by Thursday. It barely passed the House in a 231-196 vote in September (only 17 Democrats agreed to pass it), though the Senate passed it with more bipartisan ease during the shutdown in October in a 77-20 vote. But earlier this week, some sources familiar with the ongoing deliberations told Politico that Republican leaders were still trying to tie up some loose ends—such as reviewing the IVF expansion, which wasn’t included in 2024’s bill. But that was because Johnson and other GOP lawmakers reportedly worked hard to strike it.

Jezebel has reached out to Duckworth and Johnson for comment and will update this piece if we hear back.

IVF, which involves the routine of discarding unused embryos, has long been a target of the anti-abortion and fetal personhood movements—as anti-abortionists believe embryos are human beings. In fact, in February 2024, 125 Republican members of Congress (including Johnson) co-sponsored a bill that would have restricted access to IVF, and speaking to CBS in March 2024, the Speaker argued IVF should not be an issue for Congress to deal with. However, on the campaign trail, Trump promised to make IVF free for all Americans, and, after taking office in January, signed a bullshit executive order that did nothing but ask the assistant to the president on domestic policy to eventually offer some IVF policy suggestions. But in August—surprise, surprise—the Washington Post reported that the administration was trying to quietly step back from that pledge. Now, Johnson seems to be stepping in to do exactly what the administration has been working to do all along: restrict any and all reproductive health care.

“Speaker Johnson is among the most extreme anti-abortion radicals in Congress who believes embryos should have the same rights as living, breathing human beings,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wa.) said in a statement on Thursday. “It’s disgraceful but not surprising that he is working behind the scenes to force servicemembers to suffer through infertility rather than grow their families through IVF.”

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