JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
President Trump made an unusual prediction recently.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'll be known as the fertilization president. And that's OK.
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TRUMP: That's not bad.
SUMMERS: That's Trump speaking during a Women's History Month event at the White House last week. Since the campaign, Trump has been touting his support for the fertility treatment known as IVF. But as NPR's Sarah McCammon reports, that position is putting him at odds with some conservatives.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Among the long list of executive orders President Trump has signed so far, there's one focused on an issue that's not a traditional priority for Republicans.
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TRUMP: Fertilization - I've been saying that we're going to do what we have to do. And I think the women and families, husbands, are very appreciative of it.
MCCAMMON: That's Trump in February, when he signed an executive order focused on expanding access to in vitro fertilization. Trump has been staking out his support for the fertility treatment for more than a year.
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TRUMP: I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious, little, beautiful baby.
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TRUMP: I support it.
MCCAMMON: That's Trump campaigning in South Carolina early last year, after an Alabama Supreme Court decision prompted fertility clinics there to temporarily stop offering the procedure. At a time when many Republicans were worried about a voter backlash against abortion restrictions, Trump noted that IVF has overwhelming public support. Now as president, he's directed administration officials to prepare a list of ideas for expanding access and reducing costs.
BARBARA COLLURA: It's a good first start.
MCCAMMON: Barbara Collura of RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, notes that during the campaign, Trump promised either public funding or mandated insurance coverage for IVF.
COLLURA: This executive order does not do that in and of itself. It is asking for policy recommendations. So as far as we're concerned, it's a first step.
MCCAMMON: Collura is calling on the administration to offer comprehensive coverage for military service members and mandated coverage in health plans offered to federal employees, among other recommendations. Trump's push for expanded IVF coverage is getting some pushback from conservatives normally aligned with Republicans. Jason Thacker is a senior fellow in bioethics at the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, or ERLC, which opposes the intentional destruction of embryos left over from IVF.
JASON THACKER: We can do a lot of things in terms of biomedical technologies, advancements, even fertility treatments. We can do a lot of things. But what we as Christians and specifically at the ERLC are concerned about is to slow down and say, should we?
MCCAMMON: Some insurance industry leaders and some fiscal conservatives also warn that requiring insurance companies to cover IVF could increase overall health care costs. John Shelton is policy director for Advancing American Freedom, a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.
JOHN SHELTON: We just sort of see this health care mandate approach as probably driving up costs more, creating perverse incentives to create more embryos than are implanted.
MCCAMMON: Beyond helping individual couples conceive, both Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, have spoken about a desire to see more births. Here's Vance at the March for Life in Washington in January.
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VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America.
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MCCAMMON: In his public remarks, Trump has explicitly linked support for IVF to the goal of making it easier for American couples to have more babies. Research suggests IVF does not increase overall fertility rates, it just shifts when some people start their families, according to Lyman Stone of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. But Stone says there's at least one thing the federal government could do differently to encourage its workers to have more children.
LYMAN STONE: Fifty-hour work weeks are highly sterilizing. So if we want to see more babies, we should really be thinking about expanding remote work options, not reducing them.
MCCAMMON: The White House says the main goal of Trump's executive order is to help couples who are struggling to conceive, not to increase the nation's birth rate. Proposals to expand IVF access are still under review, Sarah McCammon, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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