TrumpRx, the US president’s drug discount program, went live this month. It offers coupons for only 43 medications. Among these are four drugs used for in vitro fertilization (IVF). Experts say this is a half-measure to meet Trump’s 2024 promise to make IVF treatment widely accessible. Dr Richard Paulson, reproductive medicine expert at USC, said, “TrumpRx was supposed to fix all of the problems in terms of prescription drug costs and so on, and it has not done that. The only two classes of drugs that are actually cheaper on Trump RX are the GLP-1 agonists – those are the obesity medications – and fertility drugs.” The TrumpRx website lets users search for discounts, but most medicines covered are for fertility, weight loss, and menopause. Patients can print coupons or add them to digital wallets, similar to services like GoodRx.com. The White House plans to add more drug discounts soon. However, fertility drug discounts cover only a small part of IVF costs. Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine said pharmaceutical costs are usually just 10–20% of total IVF bills, which include costly procedures like egg retrieval. Medicare estimates TrumpRx could save patients up to $2,200 per IVF cycle, but a cycle can cost up to $30,000 out of pocket. Many clinics advise planning for up to four cycles, as success rates per cycle are about 30%. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank influencing Trump’s policies, opposes IVF. It calls embryos “sacred human beings” and raises ethical concerns since not all embryos survive IVF. Tipton explained, “Pregnancy termination and pregnancy creation are very, very different things,” but the Foundation treats fertilized eggs as babies. Dr Paulson criticized the Heritage Foundation’s stance, saying it ignores natural embryo loss during reproduction. He also called the Foundation’s term “restorative reproductive medicine (RRM)” deceptive. “It’s deceptive,” he said, because it wrongly treats infertility as something that needs fixing instead of treating it as a disease. Alternatives like intrauterine insemination (IUI) can lead to risks like multiple pregnancies. The Foundation accepts IUI only if it involves a married man and woman, while opposing IVF. Paulson supports patient choice based on faith but warned against basing medical policy on religious views. “If you start with the Bible and see that as the truth, and then you filter everything through that prism, then you’re going to come up with different conclusions than those people that are just looking at the science, and that’s the problem.” The health department did not comment on TrumpRx and its fertility drug coverage.