Catholic bishops are asking lawmakers to reject legislation that would mandate insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization (IVF), a fertility treatment that violates Catholic teachings on life and human reproduction.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sent a letter to Congress on April 29 laying out concerns with the bill (H.R. 8119), which its sponsor, Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, named Helping to Optimize Patients' Experience (HOPE) with Fertility Services Act.
Under the bill, which has support from 18 Republicans and Democrats, insurance companies would face civil penalties of $100 per day if they offer plans that exclude coverage of IVF. The text does not clearly show any exemptions for religious employers, even though IVF is opposed by both the USCCB and the Southern Baptist Convention.
In the letter, the bishops express concern about the loss of embryonic human life integral to the IVF process, stating that, as practiced in the U.S., it "represents a relatively unregulated industry that creates hundreds of thousands or even millions of preborn children who will be interminably frozen, expended in attempts to place them within a mother, or discarded and killed (often in a selective, eugenic manner)."
"In addition to such mass death, IVF poses health risks to both women and the children who are born as a result of it," the letter states. "IVF also commodifies human beings, including children and, in many cases, donors or surrogates. This, furthermore, disregards the right of children to be conceived naturally, free from technological manipulation, by their own married mother and father."
The bishops in their letter also expressed religious freedom concerns. They note that supporters claim that putting the mandate in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) would prevent it from impacting religious employers.
"The fact is many religious employers that are otherwise exempt from ERISA, however, choose to provide their employees' health insurance under ERISA anyway precisely because ERISA's preemption of state law allows them to avoid having their consciences violated by state-level insurance requirements (including for IVF)," the bishops state.
"A mandate within ERISA would therefore place these employers in a new bind between its requirements and those of problematic state laws," they said. "At the same time, certain other religious employers' plans, such as those of independent religious schools, may not qualify as 'church plans' exempt from ERISA in the first place."
The bishops showed concern that an insurance mandate could lead to a problem similar to "the well-known legal saga of the Little Sisters of the Poor in fending off the 'contraceptive mandate.'"
"Any new health coverage mandate is very likely to ignite years of painful litigation for both charitable, faith-based employer organizations as well as private, for-profit employers who are people of faith," they warn.
In the letter, the bishops express grief for "the growing number of families suffering infertility" but advocate for "life-affirming" fertility treatments that seek to address the root cause of infertility as opposed to creating human embryos in a lab. These treatments are often called restorative reproductive medicine.
"The profound desire of couples to have children is both good and natural," they said. "When this is frustrated by an experience of infertility, holistic and individualized restorative approaches to fertility care exist that can often help identify and successfully address the root causes."
"As pastors, we see the suffering that infertility can cause and the deep desire of couples to grow their family," the bishops said. "We strongly encourage licit means of easing this suffering, both medically and emotionally."
The letter is signed by Archbishop Alexander K. Sample, chair of the USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty; Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, chair of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities; and Bishop Edward J. Burns, chair of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth.
"Infertility impacts millions of families and it doesn't discriminate. It can affect anyone who wants to start or grow a family," bill cosponsor Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, said in a statement. "I know firsthand. Thanks to IVF, my husband and I conceived our twins, now both healthy young adults. But after enduring that struggle, I've fought to expand insurance coverage for the prohibitively costly fertility treatments that can make this only accessible to the very few who can afford it."
Bill sponsor Nunn and cosponsors did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the bishops' concerns.
