President Donald Trump made a major decision for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments as he signed executive order to expand access and reduce the costs of IVF.
Welcoming the decision, Barbara Collura, president of Resolve, the National Infertility Association, said that what the White House put out “looks extremely promising”.
US president Donald Trump speaks during signing of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on 18 February 2025 (AFP via Getty Images)
“The biggest barriers for people to building their families are the out-of-pocket costs, the lack of insurance coverage for this care,” she said.
Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat, said: “Donald Trump’s executive order does nothing to expand access to IVF. In fact, he’s the reason IVF is at risk in the first place.”
Duckworth said if Trump is going to follow through on his campaign promise to provide free IVF, he can start by supporting her legislation that would require insurance plans to cover IVF.
Namita Singh19 February 2025 07:14
President Donald Trump signed an executive order meant to expand access to and reduce costs of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).
On the campaign trail, Trump called for universal coverage of IVF treatment after his Supreme Court nominees helped to overturn Roe v Wade, leading to a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states, including some that have threatened access to IVF by trying to define life as beginning at conception.
Trump said he thinks “women and families, husbands, are very appreciative” of his executive order on IVF, which offers a possible solution when a woman has trouble getting pregnant.
The procedure involves retrieving her eggs and combining them in a lab dish with a man’s sperm to create a fertilised embryo, which is then transferred into the woman’s uterus in an attempt to create a pregnancy. IVF is done in cycles, and more than one may be required.
Namita Singh19 February 2025 06:55
Does Donald Trump view JD Vance as his inevitable successor in 2028?
“No,” he told Fox News’s Bret Baier in his Super Bowl weekend interview. Ouch!
Plucked from an odd position of micro-celebrity into politics in 2022, then thrust into the national spotlight after winning Trump’s endorsement during the Ohio Senate race, Vance is practically the perfect MAGA convert, tainted only by a slight veneer of uncertainty thanks to his past descriptions of his boss as “America’s Hitler.”
ANALYSIS: JD Vance may be the vice president — but that doesn’t mean he’ll be head of the Republican ticket in 2028. Who could the president be eyeing to be the MAGA standard-bearer in the next election cycle?
Oliver O’Connell19 February 2025 06:30
Oliver O’Connell19 February 2025 05:10
CBS News reported late Tuesday that the Trump administration has paused all immigration applications submitted by migrants from Ukraine and Latin America who were permitted entry into the United States under certain Biden-era programs.
The report added that concerns about fraud and security were cited as reasons for the halt, citing two U.S. officials and an internal memo.
The move, which had not been previously reported, threatens to cast a cloud of uncertainty over many migrants who were applying for various immigration benefits that would allow them to stay in the U.S. legally — sometimes permanently.
While the exact number of affected migrants remains unclear, the hold on applications pertains to several Biden administration programs that permitted hundreds of thousands of foreigners to enter the U.S. legally through an immigration law known as parole. This law enables the U.S. government to swiftly welcome foreigners for humanitarian reasons or public benefit grounds.
The Biden administration used parole on an unprecedented scale, partially to encourage migrants to apply for legal migration channels instead of crossing the southern border unlawfully. The Trump administration swiftly moved to suspend those efforts, arguing that they were an abuse of the parole authority.
The pause is believed to have impacted programs that brought in 240,000 Ukrainians with U.S. sponsors, 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans sponsored by American citizens, and a third program that permitted some Colombians, Ecuadorians, Central Americans, Haitians, and Cubans with American relatives to come to the U.S. and wait for a family-based green card to become available.
Oliver O’Connell19 February 2025 04:55
Mike Bedigan19 February 2025 04:45
Aired hours before Trump’s 30th day in office in his second administration, and recorded one week ago, Hannity’s sycophantic Fox News interview with the president and the man to whom Trump is delegating unprecedented authority slapped on a thick coat of flattery before giving Musk the floor to tell viewers he has no idea what he’s talking about.
Analysis: The world’s wealthiest man spins his government siege as the will of the people but has no idea how government works
Oliver O’Connell19 February 2025 04:34
Catholic leadership in the United States is suing Donald Trump’s administration to reverse the president’s abrupt suspension of tens of millions of dollars in funding for refugee resettlement, which has stranded thousands of vulnerable people in war-torn countries despite their clearance for entry.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has partnered with federal agencies for decades to help resettle refugees, received only a “cursory, two page” notice from the administration four days after Trump took office and froze foreign aid, along with “a vague suggestion that the awards may not be consistent with the State Department’s priorities.”
Devastating funding freeze stranded thousands of recently arrived refugees, lawsuit says
Oliver O’Connell19 February 2025 04:30
Oliver O’Connell19 February 2025 04:14
Reuters reports, citing a source familiar with the plan, that President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Aaron Lukas, a career government official, as deputy to the newly confirmed Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
Gabbard, the former Democratic U.S. representative for Hawaii, with little intelligence experience, was confirmed as the top U.S. spy last week in a 52-to-48 vote, mostly along party lines.
Lukas, who served as an intelligence aide to then-acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell in 2020 during Trump’s first term, would bring years of national security experience to the position of principal deputy director of national intelligence, a role that requires Senate conf
Oliver O’Connell19 February 2025 04:00
