mercatornet.com
2024-09-14
Recently, President Trump proposed that insurance companies be required to cover in vitro fertilisation (or IVF), so it's worth asking: does subsidising IVF boost fertility?
As this brief will show, the answer is no. Free IVF has no effect on fertility.
Before getting into the heart of this issue, it's important to address a background question: what is the goal of subsidising IVF? There are a lot of possible goals.
My wife and I have struggled with infertility, ultimately overcome through the wonders of modern medicine (but not, as it happens, IVF). Helping people suffering from infertility is an important endeavour. If the goal is to alleviate suffering, IVF subsidies could be one way to do that.
But in his comments, President Trump said the goal of his proposal was "because we need great children, beautiful children," which seems to suggest, especially in combination with vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance's public comments on pro-natal policy, a belief that IVF will boost fertility.
Unfortunately, IVF subsidies are not the way to achieve this goal. That's because they don't work, and they don't work for the exact reason they are popular: such policies overwhelmingly help older women have a first birth. This is a laudable outcome, but older women facing fertility challenges are implausible candidates to help propel society-wide fertility higher.