Trump Takes Action To Reduce IVF, Infertility Drug Prices After Input From Life Advocates

WASHINGTON—Taking into account the anxieties of pro-life groups and the interests of restorative reproductive medicine advocates, President Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled a plan to lower the cost of in vitro fertilization and infertility treatments for American families.

Trump announced from the Oval Office that his administration had issued guidance allowing employers to cover IVF as part of company insurance plans. This is optional for employers, a senior White House official said on a press call with reporters Thursday, relieving some concerns from religious freedom advocates and pro-life groups. These groups find IVF to be an unethical practice, since it usually involves the creation and destruction of multiple embryos.

The president also revealed that he had reached a third agreement with EMD Serono, a leading pharmaceutical manufacturer of fertility medications, that will result in significant cost savings on fertility treatments.

“In the Trump administration, we want to make it easier for couples to have babies, raise children, and start the families they’ve always dreamed of,” the president said.

Under the deal, GONAL-F, a commonly used fertility medication, will be made available to women who purchase directly from TrumpRx.gov at a discount amounting to 796% of the deal price, the White House shared. Low and middle-income women will receive an additional discount of about 2,320% of the deal price when they purchase from TrumpRx.gov. As a result, women will be able to save about $2,200 per cycle of fertility drugs, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates.

EMD Serono also announced that, for the first time in its history, it will manufacture IVF drugs in the United States. It will also offer other medicines at a “deep discount when selling directly to American patients, guarantee MFN prices on all new innovative medicines that come to market, repatriate increased foreign revenue on existing products, and provide every State Medicaid program in the country access to MFN drug prices on EMD Serono products,” according to the White House.

“Today, EMD Serono is proud to help President Trump deliver on his promise to you,” Libby Horne, Senior VP of U.S. Fertility & Endocrinology at EMD Serono, said in the Oval Office on Thursday.

“Thanks to the president’s leadership, EMD Serono has worked alongside distributors and other partners to help more families have access to services and innovations that are consistent with other countries. Through our partnership with the administration, we are pleased to announce that Americans will have access to our leading IVF therapies for an 84% discount off list prices.”

(Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Pro-life advocates who regard IVF as unethical had anxiously awaited the president’s actions, anticipating a policy similar to President Barack Obama’s controversial contraception mandate that might force Americans into conscience violations.

They’re not thrilled with the action, but they are a little relieved. As Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson wrote, Thursday’s news was “the least bad that we could have hoped for.”

“The details are still being promulgated, but, as White House officials explained it, there will be no IVF mandate or direct government subsidies for IVF,” Anderson said. “Those who feared something akin to the Obama contraception mandate or taxpayer funding of abortion can breathe a sigh of relief. There will be no direct religious liberty or conscience violations, nor implications for taxpayer funding.”

This was partially because the Trump administration had gone to great lengths to gather the input of pro-life groups and advocates, as well as those pushing “restorative reproductive medicine,” treatments optimizing male and female reproductive health, which are also popular among the Make America Healthy Again crowd.

Nearly 18% of the global adult population experiences infertility. Among American women, infertility rates are also alarmingly high. Women across the country are grappling with endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, hormonal imbalances, and more, while men struggle with low sperm count, erectile dysfunction, diet, lifestyle, and other environmental factors.

Some experts, like Heritage Foundation’s Emma Waters, argue that infertility is a symptom of underlying reproductive health conditions. A lack of research often prevents couples from improving their fertility and, in some cases, starting families. That’s where restorative reproductive medicine comes in — and the concept has been met with interest by many Americans.

June polling from the Heritage Foundation and JLL Partners found that more than half of Americans want to prioritize solving the root causes of infertility before using IVF as a first-line treatment, and that Americans hold a strong aversion to destroying human embryos.

Live Action, for example, met with the president’s domestic policy council several times and raised suggestions on how to jump-start American fertility and “not fund unethical, expensive, and ineffective IVF.”

“It was bad but not nearly as bad as it could have been and as Trump promised it would be on campaign,” one pro-life leader shared with The Daily Wire on Friday morning regarding Trump’s new actions. “No subsidy and no mandate is a lot different [than] he sounded last fall. So still disappointed he is encouraging IVF at all, but happy it’s not [a] subsidy or mandate.”

“In my book preventing bad things is just as important as doing good things and I think the movement is responsible for preventing the very bad thing of an IVF mandate or government subsidy,” that leader added.

As Roger Severino, Vice President of Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation, noted, Trump’s announcement was not just about IVF.

“It expands access to infertility cures that treat root causes & should cover restorative reproductive medicine,” Severino argued on “X” on Friday morning. “That’s huge and very MAHA.” 

Important part of @POTUS IVF announcement today: it’s not just IVF. It expands access to infertility cures that treat root causes & should cover restorative reproductive medicine. That’s huge and very MAHA. https://t.co/JdTbEcscFo

— Roger Severino (@RogerSeverino_) October 17, 2025

Asked by The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Mitchell about how “the new benefit plan will also include root cause treatments for infertility” and how he will make sure those “root cause treatments are equally accessible,” the president responded: “I think we’re going to be doing that.” Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer noted during the meeting that “the Department of Labor is issuing their intent today to open up the rulemaking process again for more flexibility.” 

“Any time that you have a president who is leading … when you can offer more access to health care at a lower rate, [it] is a benefit to the American people and to the end user, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.”