Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News Thursday that if elected, his administration would not only protect access to in-vitro fertilization but would have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of the expensive service for American women who need it.
"We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump said, before adding, "We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."
Asked to clarify whether the government would pay for IVF services or whether insurance companies would do so, Trump reiterated that one option would be to have insurance companies pay "under a mandate, yes."
Abortion and IVF have been a political liability for the GOP this year. Democrats have blasted Republicans over IVF in recent months, saying that GOP-led restrictions on abortion could lead to restrictions on IVF as well.
In a statement, Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, said that "Donald Trump’s own platform could effectively ban IVF and abortion nationwide" and added that "because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country. There is only one candidate in this race who trusts women and will protect our freedom to make our own health care decisions: Vice President Kamala Harris.”
The statement refers to the GOP platform's language on the 14th Amendment in its section on abortion policy: "We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights."
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Earlier this year, the Alabama state Supreme Court ruled that embryos created via IVF were to be considered people, a move that led to the largest fertility clinics in the state pausing their IVF care.
Trump’s stance could put him at odds with anti-abortion advocates who oppose certain parts of the IVF process that involve discarding unused embryos.
Currently, few people have insurance plans that cover fertility treatments like IVF, leaving many couples to pay out of pocket for the treatment’s high costs. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates the cost per patient for one cycle of IVF at about $20,000.
According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, its member clinics performed 389,993 IVF cycles in 2022. At a cost of around $20,000 each, that would come to $7.8 billion for that one year.
A growing number of employers have begun to offer fertility benefits over the last decade, however. Some pay for a fixed amount of a patient’s costs, while others have a lifetime maximum of a particular number of cycles.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump's running mate, spoke in a recent, separate NBC News interview about his "frustration that reproductive rights is a whole suite of pro-family things that Republicans are way better at than Democrats. And the media always focus on abortion. But, you know, we’ve actually done a lot of things to try to promote fertility treatments to people who are struggling with it."
Trump’s stance on IVF is the latest instance of him addressing criticism of his presidential administration through 2024 campaign policy proposals. After criticism from Democrats that his 2017 tax plan favored the wealthy, he announced that if elected again, he would eliminated taxes on tips for service workers.
Now, as he and other Republicans face criticism for supporting the Supreme Court justices who struck down Roe, Trump is proposing to protect IVF and address its costs.
In the interview, Trump did not explicitly say how we would vote on an upcoming ballot measure in his home state of Florida that would guarantee a right to abortion until fetal viability, which is around 24 weeks of pregnancy. He repeated past criticism that Florida’s current six-week limit on abortion, which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is “too short.” Trump added, “it has to be more time.”
Pressed on how he will be voting in November, he said, “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.”
Trump has long gone back and forth on his position on abortion before arriving at his current position that the issue should be up to the states.
As president, before Roe v. Wade was overturned, he once urged the Senate to pass a 20-week ban on abortion. After he left office, he celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe and the national right to abortion, at one point going as far as saying, "I was able to kill Roe v. Wade," in a social media post.
But as the presidential race has taken shape this year, the former president has inched further away from other Republicans on the issue, especially as abortion has emerged as a key issue for Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies.
In a speech at the Democratic convention last week, Harris called Trump and Vance "out of their minds" and accused them of planning to "ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion."
In the interview, Trump said on abortion policy that “exceptions are very important for me,” later adding, “I believe in exceptions for life of the mother ... incest, rape.”
Trump on Thursday also pushed back on criticism of his Monday visit to Arlington National Cemetery, saying that a family “asked me whether or not I would stand for a picture at the grave of their loved one who should not have died.”
The former president said that he did not initiate the photo, adding, "While I was there, I didn’t ask for a picture. While I was there, they said, 'Sir, could we have a picture at the grave?'"
Trump's campaign has faced criticism this week after reports emerged that a member of Trump’s staff “abruptly pushed aside” a cemetery staff member who tried to prevent Trump and others from taking photo and videos in Section 60, where service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried and where filming is typically prohibited.
The former president on Thursday also blasted Harris on immigration and border security, reprising his usual language about the increased number of migrants entering the country in recent years.
"Our country is going to hell. We’ve never been in a position like this," Trump said, adding, "There’s never been a country that’s been invaded like we have been invaded. And I think that alone loses them the election."
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
