Sunday 22 / December / 2024
Washington DC: Former President Donald Trump pledged to safeguard access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments if re-elected, and promised to explore options for government or insurance coverage for American women who require this procedure, NBC News reported.
The remarks by Trump came during an interview with NBC News.
"We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump said, before adding, "We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."
Asked to clarify whether the government would pay for IVF services or whether insurance companies would do so, Trump reiterated that one option would be to have insurance companies pay "under a mandate, yes," according to a report by NBC News.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris in a post on X targeted Trump over abortion and said that if Trump emerges victorious, he will sign an abortion ban. "If Donald Trump wins, he will not only sign an abortion ban--he also intends to create a national anti-abortion coordinator, forcing states to report on women's miscarriages and abortions," Harris said on X.
In another post, she said, "More than one in three women in our nation live in a state with an abortion ban. This is a health care crisis. We will never stop fighting to protect reproductive freedom."
The debate over IVF and abortion rights remains a contentious issue in US politics, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v. Wade and sparked a series of state-level legislative battles. The 2022 midterm elections highlighted a backlash against anti-abortion policies, with many Republican candidates suffering defeats due in part to their stances on abortion.
Notably, Democrats have stepped up their attacks on Republicans over IVF in recent months, saying that GOP-led restrictions on abortion could lead to restrictions on IVF also.
