A huge defense policy bill, revealed by US lawmakers on Sunday, does not include a provision that would have provided broad healthcare coverage for in vitro fertilization (IVF) for active-duty members of the military, despite Donald Trump’s pledge to strengthen access to the procedure.
Both the House and Senate previously approved the provision, which was added to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as an amendment earlier this year. But Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House and a diehard anti-abortion Republican, worked behind the scenes to strip the provision from the new version of the NDAA, MS NOW reported last week.
Although IVF is extremely popular with the American public, abortion foes often oppose it on the grounds that it creates unused or discarded embryos, which they see as people.
Advocates for IVF, including Danielle Melfi, the CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association, have spoken out about the exclusion.
“Failing to include IVF coverage in the NDAA is a dishonor to our servicemembers who make extraordinary sacrifices for our freedoms,” she said in a statement. “There was bipartisan support for this coverage, and its exclusion fails to advance President Trump’s call to expand IVF access. Military families have waited far too long to access the full range of medical care needed to build their families.”
Johnson did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the exclusion of the IVF provision. However, in a Sunday statement, Johnson praised the latest version of the NDAA extensively.
“It roots out Biden-era wokeism in our military and restores merit-based promotions and admissions to service academies, prohibits contracts with partisan firms, counters antisemitism and halts harmful, unnecessary programs like CRT, DEI and climate initiatives,” he said.
In recent years, Republicans have sought to use the NDAA to entrench their socially conservative policies within the military. Although the NDAA does not directly appropriate funds, it does set forth the policies on which funds will eventually be spent.
Congress may vote on the latest version of the NDAA as early as this week.
While on the campaign trail, Trump claimed that he was “the father of IVF” and said that he wanted to make IVF free. Since retaking the White House, however, he has fallen far short of that promise. In October, Trump announced that his administration would urge employers to create new fertility benefit options to cover IVF. However, employers are not required to offer the coverage and it is unclear how many employers will ultimately adopt it.
In a statement, Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, called on Trump to account for Johnson’s actions.
“It is shameful that members of Congress and congressional staff enjoy access to comprehensive fertility benefits while they continue to deny this same coverage to military families,” Tipton said. “This lack of parity is especially appalling because servicemembers are far more likely to be affected by infertility than the general public, with one in four military members experiencing infertility due to a number of factors, including occupational hazards.”
