‘The pro-life movement still has some real juice’: How Trump’s promise of free IVF fizzled

^{“Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at the Prescott Valley Event Center in Prescott Valley, Arizona” by Gage Skidmore licensed under CC by SA 2.0} 

Social and religious conservatives spent more than a year lobbying first the Trump campaign and then the administration against mandating or subsidizing insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, which they consider akin to abortion.

Last week, their work paid off.

President Donald Trump unveiled policies to lower the cost of fertility drugs and to create a new pathway for optional employer-based coverage of IVF, arguing the moves would make it easier for couples to have children. But Trump, who promised on the campaign trail to make fertility treatments free for all patients, will not have the government pay for it or require insurance companies to cover the cost.

“There were letters and meetings and calls — a lot of activity,” said Kristi Hamrick, the lead federal policy strategist with Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion group. “We told [the Trump administration] that it would be an absolute violation of people’s...