WASHINGTON, D.C. – Recently, Liberty Counsel Action (LCA) has urged the federal government to expand health insurance plans to prioritize diagnosing and treating the underlying causes of infertility rather than adding coverage for in vitro fertilization (IVF). 

In May 2026, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Health and Human Services jointly issued a proposed federal rule, “Expected Fertility Benefits,” which proposes establishing a new category of fertility benefits that would make it easier for employers to offer insurance coverage for IVF treatments through “standalone or specialty offerings.” The rule stems from President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order 14216 to expand access to IVF “by easing unnecessary statutory or regulatory burdens” and “to make IVF treatment drastically more affordable.” 

LCA submitted a 30-page public comment on the proposed rule suggesting that the best way to adhere to the IVF executive order is to address “the overall health of those struggling with infertility,” often referred to as Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM). LCA asserts that RRM is a better alternative to IVF because it takes a more “holistic” approach to patient care by identifying and treating the causes of infertility, such as endometriosis, hormonal imbalances, and other reproductive health conditions. LCA recommended the federal government prioritize RRM as a primary fertility benefit rather than bypassing these problems and resorting to IVF, which can be more expensive, more invasive, and is laced with ethical concerns related to embryo creation, freezing, selection, and destruction.

Specifically, LCA recommended that the federal government: 

• Recognize that “human life begins a fertilization” and that embryos should be treated as human beings entitled to legal protections.
• Define “infertility” as a medical condition caused by an underlying pathology rather than broadening coverage without an understanding or diagnosis of why a couple is not conceiving.
• Prioritize RRM because it addresses infertility causes, can improve overall health, can be less expensive than IVF, and can achieve successful pregnancies in some cases where IVF has failed.
• Exclude IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies from insurance coverage unless comprehensive federal safeguards are adopted, such as requiring patients try RRM first, limiting IVF and other technologies to married or heterosexual couples, prohibiting surrogacy, anonymous sperm donation, embryo selection based on preferred traits, and regulating embryo creation and freezing.
• Conduct a federal education campaign to increase RRM awareness. 

LCA also noted that the U.S. IVF industry is sometimes referred to as the “wild west” because it has very few protections and a lack of regulations in place for patients and created embryos. LCA’s public comment cites the loss and destruction of millions of embryos that outpace annual elective abortion rates, as well as embryo mix-ups, fertility fraud, freezer failures destroying embryos and eggs, and other clinical errors as creating risks and a need for stronger federal safeguards and oversight.

“In 2024 alone, a conservative estimate based on the most recent data available from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine suggests approximately 3.9 million embryos were lost or frozen in perpetuity, a number that has most likely increased,” the comment reads. “By way of comparison, that is nearly four times the estimated number of induced abortions in 2024.”

The lack of oversight has also contributed to other “egregious harms,” including: 

• A couple suffering intense emotional trauma after realizing their baby birthed through IVF was of a different race due to an accidental “mix-up,” and having to devise a unique custody agreement with the biological parents.
• “Fertility fraud” where dozens of women have unknowingly given birth to children fathered by more than 50 doctors, some of whom are accused of illegally using “their own sperm to artificially inseminate patients.”
• In 2018, more than 150 families sued the University Hospitals in Ohio after a freezer malfunction caused the loss of 4,000 eggs and embryos rendering them nonviable affecting more than 900 families.
• A tier 1 registered sex-offender in Pennsylvania, who had been convicted of child sex abuse, became the legal parent without a background check, along with his male partner, of a child born through IVF to a surrogate mother. 

“The Departments have an opportunity to shape fertility policy in a way that promotes family formation while upholding human dignity and ethical medical practice,” wrote Liberty Counsel Action. “Restorative Reproductive Medicine and regulations that value and recognize life as beginning at fertilization should therefore be the ‘gold standard’ of fertility care.” 

Liberty Counsel Action Chairman Mat Staver said, “IVF conceives many precious human lives. However, millions are tragically destroyed in the process. Instead of prioritizing IVF in new specialty insurance coverages, federal agencies should offer coverage for Restorative Reproductive Medicine. RRM can lead to natural reproduction, which would more safely fulfill the Trump administration’s goal of expanding affordable fertility care for Americans.”

Liberty Counsel Action is a 501(c)(4), nonprofit, grassroots organization advancing religious and civil liberties, the sanctity of human life, the family, limited and responsible government, national security, and support for Israel in Washington D.C. and across America.