Sebastian's Point
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Government Policies Mandating IVF Coverage Are Not Pro-Life
Despite Donald Trump’s past pro-life comments, such as his promising to “veto any legislation[i] that weakens pro-life policy or that encourages the destruction of human life,” and his threatening to revoke California’s federal health care funds[ii] for the state’s covering of abortion in insurance plans, in his current campaign he basks in willful ignorance of practices that continue to destroy human life. Trump recently stated[iii] that his administration is “pro-family”[iv] and wants more babies to be born; therefore, he wants In Vitro Fertilization provided for “free” to infertile couples, either through government subsidization, or by mandating that insurance companies pay for it.
IVF isn’t pro-life
While Trump opposed mandated payments of any kind for abortion, he appears to remain unconcerned, or at best unaware, that IVF takes more life than it creates.[v] The IVF process[vi], which mixes sperm and eggs together in a laboratory to create numerous embryonic persons, is fraught with the loss of human life, as only 2-7% of lab-created children are ever born alive.[vii] Combining the numbers of embryonic persons who do not survive the transfer process[viii], are disposed of, do not survive the thawing process, or are donated to research, IVF disposes of millions of human beings. After retrieval, IVF facilitators routinely prefer having about ten to 12 mature eggs[ix] available with which to work. If a woman hopes to have one child, depending on her age and on average, about 80 percent of her eggs will fertilize. So, if there are 10 eggs, then about 8 of them will fertilize, and between one-third to one-half[x] of these embryos will actually implant. In 2021, it was reported[xi] that out of 413,776 IVF cycles, there were only 112,088 pregnancies, and 91,906 live births (deliveries of one or more living infants). How many embryos are created that don’t survive, considering that over 8 million children[xii] have been born through IVF since 1978?
The cost of one IVF cycle[xiii], including the cost of medication for ovarian stimulation and the costs of egg retrieval and embryo transfer, can range from approximately $15,000 to $30,000. How much will taxpayers have to dish out to subsidize this loss of life? An estimated $7 billion a year.[xiv] This should be especially concerning to those who, as with abortion, have religious objections to the trial and error with embryonic human beings that is inherent within the IVF process.
The slippery slope of insurance benefits
Several insurance companies[xv], such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, and Aetna, offer fertility benefits for egg-freezing and IVF, as well as other reproductive treatments. However, the requirements for insurance companies vary from state to state.[xvi]
In January 2020[xvii], the state of New York passed an “infertility mandate” that requires large group insurance providers---companies with more than 100 employees---to cover up to three cycles of IVF for infertile persons, egg and sperm freezing, as well as drugs used for the treatment of infertility. Currently, California is proposing mandated insurance[xviii] coverage for fertility treatments, including for those without an infertility diagnosis such as LGBTQ persons.
If insurance companies are required to provide IVF coverage, this most likely will extend to fertility “preservation” benefits as well. In our current age, the “most admired”[xix] companies have twice as many women in senior management positions than do less admired companies. Unfortunately, women often give in to companies using them for their productivity, and they decide (or perhaps feel they have no other option) to put their careers first at the expense of all other aspects of their lives. This “career first” mindset is even more prevalent when employers offer egg-freezing benefits instead of better ways to balance work-life obligations, such as extended parental leave, shift flexibility, and childcare benefits. The view is often reinforced that motherhood and career goals cannot be achieved simultaneously.
It hardly comes as a surprise[xx], then, that large corporations would offer incentives to keep women in their workforces for the sake of reaching the companies’ bottom lines, and since “more than 32% of employees say that they will stay with a company longer if that company offers a fertility benefit,” yet another clear incentive exists for more companies to offer these packages.
Facebook, in 2014, was the first[xxi] Fortune 500 company to offer egg-freezing benefits for employees and their spouses. Apple soon followed, and more than a dozen top technology companies since then, such as Google and Netflix, have followed.
Employees of Facebook and Apple were also invited to egg-freezing “cocktail parties” and “girls’ night out,” where they could discuss the benefits of freezing their eggs as part of a “dinner time conversation.” The very act of fitting scheduled conversations about fertility and egg-freezing into a working woman’s day reduces the intrinsically intimate prospect of her conceiving a human being to just another social gathering to attend and then cross off her to-do list. Why do fertility clinics try to appeal to women with such casual, relaxed get-togethers? Money, of course. The creation of human beings is big business to the fertility industry. Should any self-respecting woman possessing self-sacrificial love for her children, however, really allow the lives of her children—she knowing very few of whom, if conceived through IVF, will ever make it to the finish line of live birth from her womb—to start by a commodifying laboratory procedure?
Eugenic practices
As part of a three-year pilot public employees' health plan, Utah proposed requiring Medicaid[xxii] to “cover IVF costs for carriers of the genetic, deadly and expensive diseases,” while Representative Ward also claimed that there were cost savings to choosing embryos to implant based on genetic screening of the available embryos, as insurance companies would only be required to “...pay $16,000 once, for the in vitro fertilization services, instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars.” So, it is a win-win in regards to “health and cost savings.” Ward encouraged other insurance companies to see if funding this eugenic procedure could save them money as well.
The New York Infertility Mandate, Utah Medicaid requirement, and California’s recent fertility insurance proposal, continue to promote and push the belief that IVF is a moral practice—one which everyone should accept with no further consideration of the harms of the process. If Trump enacts his “free” IVF policy, there will continue to be a massive loss of embryonic human life, not “more babies.” Further, the “pro-family” mindset will be halted by those seeking to use fertility benefits to put their careers before the creation of families.
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[ii] AP, “Trump admin threatens California with funds loss over abortion coverage,” Associated Press, January 24, 2020.
[iii] Burns, et al, “Trump says he wants to make IVF treatments paid for by government or insurance companies if elected”, NBC News, August 29, 2024
[iv] AP, ”Trump promises universal coverage for IVF, suggests he'll vote against Florida abortion measure”, Associated Press, August 29, 2024.
[v] Breckenridge, Katie, “How IVF takes more life than it creates,” Our Sunday Visitor, August 29, 2024.
[vi] Breckenridge, Katie, “IVF Harms to Children,” Them Before Us, July 15, 2022.
[vii] Waters, Emma, “Why the IVF Industry Must Be Regulated,” The Heritage Foundation, March 19, 2024.
[viii] Breckenridge, Katie, “IVF Harms to Children,” Them Before Us, July 15, 2022.
[xi] See https://www.cdc.gov/art/reports/2021/pdf/Report-ART-Fertility-Clinic-National-Summary-H.pdf.
[xii] See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180703084127.htm.
[xiii] Conrad, Marissa, “How Much Does IVF Cost?,” Forbes, August 14, 2023.
[xiv] Glebova, Diana, et al, “Trump’s free IVF plan could cost taxpayers up to $7B: experts,” New York Post, August 30, 2024.
[xv] Frankel, Lindsay, “The Best Fertility Insurance for 2024,” Investopedia, August 30, 2024.
[xvii] Breckenridge, Katie, “The Need for More Restrictive IVF Legislation,” The Journal of Bioethics in Law & Culture, Fall 2020.
[xviii] Mays, Mackenzie, “In rare agreement, California Democrats and Trump both pitch insurance coverage for IVF,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 2024.
[xix] Blumberg, Yoni, “Companies with more female executives make more money—here’s why,” CNBC, March 2, 2018.
[xx] Nieves, Peter, “5 reasons employers should offer sponsored fertility benefits,” EBN, September 9, 2019.
[xxi] Kerr, Dara, “Egg freezing, so hot right now,” CNET, May 22, 2017.
[xxii] Vaughen, Kelly, “Utah bill aims to make some IVF treatments covered by insurance,” KUTV, February 18, 2020.
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