Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he supports having the government or insurance companies cover the costs of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and criticized a six-week abortion ban in Florida, comments he walked back on Friday. "Under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump said in an interview with NBC News . "Or we're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.
" Trump soon announced the policy at a rally in Michigan, telling a crowd that "your government will pay for or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment." Health insurance companies are not currently obligated to cover IVF treatments, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. The issue of access to fertility treatments became a political flashpoint in February after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were considered children under the law.
The ruling caused an uproar and cleared the way for potential wrongful death claims if an embryo did not survive the process, causing several providers to pause IVF treatments. Shortly after the Alabama decision, Trump called on the state's legislature to "quickly find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama." The state passed a law protecting the procedure in March, but the legal battle had already opened a new front in the national fight over reproductive rights.
Democrats have said the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 .