U.S. Bishops Urge Labor Department to Keep IVF Out of Expanded Fertility Insurance Rule
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has told the Department of Labor, in no uncertain terms, that it should not use a new insurance rule to expand access to in vitro fertilization. Regulators are weighing a proposed category of limited excepted benefits that would give employers more room to offer coverage for IVF and other fertility treatments. In a 17-page comment letter submitted by the USCCB's legal counsel, the bishops said they welcome expanded coverage for fertility care that respects unborn life and the natural procreative act, but drew a hard line against IVF itself.
"IVF, especially as practiced in the U.S., kills or freezes at least as many preborn children as abortion, at a magnitude of hundreds of thousands or perhaps over a million per year," the bishops wrote. Every IVF cycle produces multiple fertilized embryos, the comment explained, most of which never survive, while those that do are often screened genetically before implantation, a practice the bishops called a "dystopian form of modern eugenics that kills those children deemed genetically inferior." Others are eliminated later through "selective reduction" when parents implant more embryos than they intend to carry to term.
The bishops were joined by the Catholic Medical Association, the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the National Association of Catholic Nurses, USA, all of which filed their own comments backing restorative reproductive medicine, or RRM, as the ethical alternative. RRM treats the underlying causes of infertility so a couple can conceive through the marital act itself, rather than replacing it in a lab. The Catholic Medical Association called that path "more holistic, gentler, more respectful of human life," while the joint Catholic comment warned that manufacturing "spare" embryos for research or genetic selection "is an affront to humanity and should be prohibited."
The bishops also raised a practical warning for regulators: including IVF could expose the entire rule to legal challenge for exceeding the Labor Department's statutory authority. Should IVF be included regardless, the bishops asked for firm guardrails limiting embryo creation to what can safely be carried to term and guaranteeing that restorative options are clearly presented to every couple.
Final Thoughts
Every embryo lost in a lab is a child made in the image of God, not a byproduct of policy. Priests for Life urges the Labor Department to listen to the bishops, choose life over convenience, and give couples struggling with infertility the chance to become parents without paying for it with their own children's lives.
