President Trump announced several policy proposals on Thursday to make in vitro fertilization more accessible, the first concrete steps from the White House on an issue that he had repeatedly promised to address on the campaign trail.
In remarks from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump announced a deal with a major pharmaceutical company that White House officials said was aimed at reducing the cost of the drugs necessary for a standard I.V.F. cycle.
The White House will also issue guidance on what it is calling an employer benefit option to encourage employers to offer I.V.F. and broader infertility coverage directly to workers, in the same way they would with vision or dental coverage.
“The initiatives I’ve just announced are the boldest and most significant actions ever taken by any president to bring the miracle of life into more American homes,” Mr. Trump said. “There’s no deeper happiness and joy of raising children and now millions of Americans struggling with infertility will have a new chance to share the greatest experience of them all.”
Thursday’s event marked the most pronounced demonstration yet of Mr. Trump’s embrace of the “pronatalist” movement. Several people who spoke at the event, including the president, stressed Mr. Trump’s commitment to allowing women to have more children — a goal of many in the Trump administration amid declining U.S. birthrates.
“Now I know what you’re all thinking, and you’re probably right, that there are going to be a lot of Trump babies,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said at the event.
It is unclear how much the new policies will affect the price tag of I.V.F. — which typically costs $15,000 to $20,000 for a single cycle for both drug and medical expenses — or how many employers will choose to offer coverage for the procedure as a result. The White House will not be providing any subsidies for employers that offer such benefits, and there will be no mandate that they participate.
Only one in four companies with more than 200 employees currently covers I.V.F.
The development comes after months of deliberations on I.V.F., an issue that has highlighted tensions among the president’s base. Since Mr. Trump took office, his administration has debated how to handle the issue, meeting regularly with leading proponents of I.V.F. and also with Christian conservatives who have deep moral and ethical concerns with the procedure, which often involves discarding human embryos.
The White House announcement appeared to be an effort to satisfy both sides of that debate, with the administration publicly endorsing I.V.F. but offering proposals that stopped short of imposing requirements that employers cover the procedure, or other policies that would more aggressively expand access.
“I think it is a whole lot less than he promised in the campaign,” said Sean Tipton, the chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the leading medical group for I.V.F. “On the other hand, it’s a whole lot more than we had feared was going to happen. It’s not restrictive in any way, and it doesn’t promote bad science in any way.”
But the announcement drew swift backlash from Christian conservatives and antiabortion advocates, many of whom had been pushing Mr. Trump to back away from his support for I.V.F. In recent months, a growing coalition had been advocating an alternative approach to infertility in line with the Make American Healthy Again movement. That approach, called restorative reproductive medicine, addresses what proponents call the root causes of infertility, and leaves I.V.F. as a last resort.
The president did not explicitly refer to restorative reproductive medicine during his remarks on Thursday, but mentioned his commitment to reducing the number of people who need to turn to I.V.F. for infertility care.
The administration issued an executive order on I.V.F. soon after Mr. Trump took office, promising to lower costs and make the procedure more accessible. The order gave no specifics on how the administration would achieve that goal but promised that a detailed report with recommendations on the topic would be prepared by late May.
Five months later, the report has not been released.
White House officials said Thursday that they had reached a deal with EMD Serono, a division of the German drugmaker Merck KGaA, in which patients would be able to directly buy the company’s fertility drugs at prices steeply discounted from sticker prices. Patients could use their own money or go through insurance if they have coverage for fertility treatment.
Currently, patients who pay for I.V.F. drugs using their own money sometimes pay over $5,000 for medicines for a single I.V.F. cycle. Employers that cover fertility drugs already pay less than the sticker price, after discounts. White House officials said the exact prices for patients through the new offering would vary based on income.
EMD Serono’s offering of the fertility drugs will be part of TrumpRx.gov, a website the Trump administration plans to create that will direct patients to direct-buy websites run by manufacturers like EMD Serono. A promotional version of the TrumpRx website went live last week and is expected to be operational next year.
The drug pricing deal with EMD Serono is Mr. Trump’s third in the last few weeks, following similar agreements with Pfizer and AstraZeneca. He has demanded that an additional 14 major drugmakers agree to similar deals. Drugmakers have been eager to reach the voluntary deals with the president to avoid more aggressive regulation that could cut deeply into their profits.
EMD Serono said the deal would allow the company to avoid Mr. Trump’s threatened tariffs on imported medicines. Pfizer and AstraZeneca secured similar reprieves.
Mr. Trump began embracing infertility issues on the campaign trail early last year, after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos used in I.V.F. should be considered children. The decision prompted intense backlash from both Democrats and Republicans across the country.
Mr. Trump quickly distanced himself from the ruling, urging the Alabama Legislature to protect access to the procedure and later promising to make it free, without providing details on how he would do so.
Margot Sanger-Katz contributed reporting.
Caroline Kitchener is a Times reporter, writing about the American family.
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
Rebecca Robbins is a Times reporter covering the pharmaceutical industry. She has been reporting on health and medicine since 2015.
Sarah Kliff is an investigative health care reporter for The Times.
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