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Today, May 19, 2025, is the deadline for policy recommendations on ways to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and lower its costs. And while his administration is currently contemplating some bizarre and patronizing ways to raise birth rates, like baby bonuses and motherhood awards, my suggestion is to support military families who desperately want to grow their families.
I’m incredibly proud to represent San Diego, the biggest military community in the country, which is home to 110,000 active-duty service members and more than 118,000 of their family members. So, I hear all the time about their lives and their struggles to pay rent and put food on the table, their inability to find reliable childcare, their concerns about their safety, and their journeys with infertility.
For example, a senior-enlisted sailor, Matt, shared with me that he and his wife Jenny had two daughters via IVF – after five miscarriages, seven frozen embryo transfers, 600 shots and spending $80,000.
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About a quarter of active-duty service members and military spouses report infertility, which is double the national average of the general population. When we think about the level of sacrifices we’re asking from our military families, their struggles with infertility make sense.
Our service members endure physically intensive training, demanding schedules, and frequent relocations during their prime reproductive years. Deployments are often long and stressful, where they’re physically separated from their partner, which also takes an emotional toll. On top of that, military service also means living and working in hazardous environments that can negatively impact fertility.
Despite all of these well-documented stressors, TRICARE, the country’s military health insurance plan, only covers fertility services for those who can prove a service connection to injury or illness, which is often impossible to do. This leaves our military families with three realistic options: pay tens of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for a chance at a family, forgo having children or leave the military altogether.
The cost-of-living crisis is affecting everyone in our country, but especially military families, many of whom live on fixed incomes and struggle to afford childcare, housing and food on the table. This isn’t a demographic that can easily afford tens of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket on anything, so folks are leaving the military for this coverage, worsening our recruitment and retention challenges and impacting our military readiness.
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Military families need IVF access. They deserve it. And they’ve earned it. That’s why I introduced the “IVF for Military Families Act” alongside Illinois Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth to require TRICARE to cover infertility diagnosis and treatment, including IVF. Our legislation would cover up to three complete egg retrievals, unlimited embryo transfers, and the necessary medications for IVF and intrauterine insemination (IUI).
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Starting this year, members of Congress and our staff have access to comprehensive infertility treatment, including IVF coverage, just like many other civilian employees in the federal and private sectors. We shouldn’t have access to benefits that our military families don’t have. But despite this hypocrisy, our bill still lacks support from my Republican colleagues in both the House and Senate.
I’m (obviously) skeptical of Trump’s commitment to expanding IVF access, but he has called himself the “Fertilization President” and the “father of IVF.” If he wants that to be true, he should throw his support behind a demographic that has already sacrificed so much for the safety and security of our country: our military families.
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Expanding TRICARE coverage of IVF could be the watershed moment needed to change the entire market and ensure that everyone in our country has access to IVF. It could put market pressure on private insurers to include IVF and other fertility treatments in their healthcare coverage plans so they remain competitive.
This leaves our military families with three realistic options: pay tens of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for a chance at a family, forgo having children or leave the military altogether.
While the IVF for Military Families Act would be a monumental step forward, the ultimate goal is for everyone to have access to the full range of reproductive care, so they have the power and the ability to decide when and if to have children.
We ask so much from our service members – to risk their safety, to be apart from their families, and to give up certain freedoms – but we shouldn’t ask them to give up their opportunity to build a family. As a country, we need to do more than say we value our military community, we need to actually show it. And I think President Trump has a great place to start by supporting our bill to expand IVF coverage for military families.
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