Trump: Religious Exemption to IVF Mandate Is ‘A Pretty Good Idea’

 Former President Donald Trump is open to religious exemptions to his proposed in vitro fertilization (IVF) mandate that would require insurance companies to cover the costs of IVF treatments.

“It sounds, to me, like a pretty good idea, frankly,” Trump told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo, as they spoke on Thursday evening at the 79th Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City.

Arroyo had pointed out to Trump that many Catholics and Christians object to the fertility treatments on moral grounds. The Catholic Church is opposed to IVF and says that it is “morally unacceptable,” teaching that“the gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union.”

“As you know,” Arroyo pointed out, “some Catholics feel, and the Church believes, that when you implement this technology, you’re killing embryos. Will you have a religious exemption to your IVF mandate for religious organizations and businesses that feel, ‘This violates my religious principles?'”

“I haven’t been asked that, but it sounds like a pretty good idea, frankly,” Trump responded, adding: “Even Catholics, a lot of them, they want IVF. It’s fertilization, basically, they view that as helping the family, helping parents have a child, and it’s a very popular thing, but certainly if there is a religious problem, I think people should go with that. I really think they should be able to do that. But we’ll look into that.”

Trump described himself as the “father of IVF” during a Fox News town hall with women this week, calling the Republican Party “the party for I.V.F.” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the New York Times that the “father” remark was “a joke President Trump made in jest when he was enthusiastically answering a question about I.V.F.”

The Trump campaign has approached the controversial IVF issue from the stance that the Republican party supports women, supports fertility, and supports more babies.

“We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump told NBC News in August, adding: “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”

At a rally in Michigan in August, Trump promised that under a future Trump administration, “your government will pay for or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment.”

The former president added: “We want more babies!”