President Trump, IVF Isn't the Way To Support Reproductive Health | Opinion

The Trump administration is preparing to release an executive order aimed at expanding access to fertility treatments for American families. With the U.S. birth rate near record lows and infertility on the rise, federal support for couples seeking to start families is both timely and necessary.

But how the administration structures that support will make all the difference. To be effective and ethically sound, any new fertility policy must uphold core principles: the dignity of human life, the strength of the family, and the responsible use of taxpayer dollars.

In vitro fertilization (IVF), though widely practiced, is a flawed and grossly unethical approach to addressing infertility. As currently practiced, it carries high financial costs, low success rates, and involves the routine destruction and indefinite freezing of millions of human beings at the earliest stage of life. IVF costs an average of $20,000 per cycle, many couples requiring multiple cycles to achieve a successful live birth, leading to total expenses of $60,000 or more.

The Trump administration should use this executive order to champion an ethical and effective alternative: restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), a scientifically grounded model that treats the root causes of infertility without destroying countless human lives.

RRM is a medical approach that identifies and treats underlying causes of infertility in both men and women. Unlike IVF, which bypasses health issues by creating embryos in a lab and transferring them into the uterus, RRM works with the body's natural reproductive system to restore function and optimize fertility.

Using diagnostic tools, hormone analysis, cycle tracking, and targeted medical or surgical interventions, RRM addresses a wide range of common fertility barriers—including ovulation and hormone disorders, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, thyroid dysfunction, and male-factor infertility. Treatments may include hormonal support, dietary and lifestyle adjustments, microbiome optimization, minor surgeries, or medication, always with the goal of achieving natural conception.

Critically, RRM achieves comparable or better live birth rates than IVF, without the destruction of embryos and at a fraction of the cost. Because it restores long-term reproductive health, RRM not only supports conception but improves maternal and infant outcomes as well.

As a physician and an advocate, we urge the administration not to funnel federal funding into the IVF industry and instead to prioritize fertility treatments that restore reproductive health while respecting human dignity. We recommend the following three policies:

1. Prohibit federal funding of IVF and block insurance mandates for embryo-destructive procedures. The IVF industry depends on mass human embryo destruction. Each cycle creates on average nine embryos—human lives at their earliest stage. Yet fewer than 10 percent survive to birth. Most are destroyed, frozen, or lost in the process. By some estimates, more than one million human embryos remain frozen in the United States today.

Federal funding should never subsidize a practice that discards human beings. Nor should the government mandate insurance coverage for procedures that violate core pro-life principles. If the Trump administration is serious about defending life from conception, it must apply that principle to all technologies—not just abortion, but also IVF.

2. Elevate restorative reproductive medicine as the gold standard. RRM is the future of ethical fertility care. It doesn't bypass the body's natural processes—it restores them. RRM identifies and treats the root causes of infertility in both men and women, resulting in higher rates of natural conceptions and healthier pregnancies.

Compared to IVF, RRM is more effective and far more affordable. Studies show live birth rates of 40–66 percent for couples who complete RRM treatment—often higher than IVF outcomes, especially for those who've failed previous IVF cycles. And RRM does not share IVF's ethical baggage; it leaves no discarded embryos, no frozen lives, no commodification of children.

3. Launch a national fertility strategy focused on healing, not harm. The Trump administration should use this executive order to reorient federal fertility policy around life-affirming care. That means:

• Mandating insurance coverage for RRM in federally subsidized plans.
• Expanding access through Title X, HHS grants, and loan repayment programs for RRM-trained providers.
• Launching a national public awareness campaign highlighting RRM as the ethical first-line treatment.
• Investing in RRM research and data collection to improve outcomes and build provider networks.

RRM is not just more ethical; it's more sustainable. It saves taxpayers money, reduces medical risks for mothers and babies, and strengthens families in the long term.

Some physicians who once offered IVF as a standard treatment, like one of the authors here (Dr. Rubal), have grown deeply concerned about its ethical implications. While the procedure can result in a live birth, it also routinely leads to the destruction or indefinite freezing of human embryos, each a genetically distinct human being from the moment of fertilization. A consistent, science-informed pro-life ethic must account for this reality and reject policies that treat human life as disposable.

Likewise, those committed to defending life from abortion must recognize that embryo destruction in fertility clinics raises the same moral concerns abortion does. The routine loss of embryos in IVF may be less visible, but it is no less grave. Ethical consistency demands that federal fertility policy protect human life at all stages, including in the earliest days of its existence.

We understand the deep pain of infertility. We ache for the couples who are longing to hold a child. But the solution must never be the destruction of other children.

There's a better path. The Trump administration has an opportunity to set a new standard for fertility care in America: one that lifts up families without sacrificing our most vulnerable. The upcoming executive order should reflect that vision.

Children are not products to be manufactured. They are gifts to be welcomed. With the right policies, we can restore hope to families and do so while preserving respect for human life.

Lila Rose is the founder and president of Live Action, a human rights organization dedicated to ending abortion and defending human dignity.

Dr. Lauren Rubal, MD, is a board-certified Integrative OB/GYN and Reproductive Endocrinologist based in Orange County, CA.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.