President Donald Trump announced 16 October a policy proposal to increase access to in vitro fertilisation, including issuing guidance urging employers to offer fertility benefits directly to their employees.
However, the US Catholic bishops’ conference expressed concern the following day, saying that while they support ethical efforts to address infertility, they “strongly reject” the effort to promote IVF.
Trump previously campaigned on requiring the government or insurance companies to pay for IVF, which is a form of fertility treatment opposed by the Catholic Church on the grounds that it often involves the destruction of human embryos, among other moral and ethical concerns.
“In the Trump administration, we want to make it easier for all couples to have babies, raise children and start the families they always dreamed about,” Trump said in comments at the White House.
Asked by a reporter about those who have religious objections to IVF, Trump replied, “I don’t know about the views of that. I’m just looking to do something because – pro-life, I think this is very pro-life.
This is – you can’t get more pro-life than this.” But the 1987 document from the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith known as “Donum Vitae” or “The Gift of Life,” states the church opposes IVF and related practices, including gestational surrogacy, in part because “the connection between in vitro fertilisation and the voluntary destruction of human embryos occurs too often.”
