RICHMOND — A bill that can help people start and grow their families through fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization will become law, after Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed it along with several other measures he initially tried to amend.
House Bill 1609 by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, will require the Health Insurance Reform Commission (HIRC) to consider coverage for diagnosis and treatment of infertility and procedures like IVF in its 2025 review of essential health benefits covered by health insurance.
“The timing is actually really critical in that HIRC is about to do the essential health benefits plan,” Helmer said, adding that now the state will “have to look seriously” at whether to include infertility care in the health insurance coverage it offers Virginians.
When the legislature concluded the bulk of its work this past February, Youngkin then reviewed the bills that passed and weighed whether to sign, veto or seek amendments on them. Before signing Helmer’s bill, he tried to tweak it by including a provision for nongovernmental health insurance plan sponsors to opt out of potential coverage requirements for religious or ethical purposes. The legislature rejected this idea, punting it back to Youngkin, who recently approved it in its original form.
In his signature explanation, Youngkin called Helmer’s bill a “balanced approach” to expanding fertility care in the state because it didn’t outright mandate immediate coverage for the treatment.
Calling it an “interim step,” Youngkin commended the bill and said HIRC’s review of how infertility care coverage could be implemented can “ensure the General Assembly has the data, analysis and necessary input to make an informed decision in the future.”
Like his previous attempt to amend Helmer’s bill, Youngkin added that he believes it’s “essential” for his exemption idea to be taken up if Virginia does eventually cover fertility treatments like IVF.
“The conscience clause that my amendment would have added is critical to ensure the expansion of fertility care does not come at the cost of religious liberty,” Youngkin said.
While some states have passed laws to protect IVF access, members of Congress have sparred over the issue and failed to agree on federal protections. The reproductive healthcare treatment, which was less controversial in past years, has come under scrutiny after Alabama’s state supreme court ruled last year that embryos are people — prompting fertility clinics to suspend the procedure for risk of lawsuits. The state recently passed a law to protect IVF in the state, though questions remain about future challenges.
Virginia-born Elizabeth Carr, the first person born of the procedure in the U.S., has emphasized that IVF is not “just (to treat) infertility.”
“There are implications for if you need a surrogate, if you are a same-sex couple, if you want to screen for a genetic disease,” she told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2024. “Or, if you are going through cancer treatment and want to preserve your eggs so that after you’re done and you want to conceive, you can use IVF.”
The use of IVF after a cancer diagnosis hit close to home for Helmer, whose close family member had to leave Virginia because health insurance didn’t cover the treatments in the state. For the past several years, he’s carried some version of House Bill 1609 to bring the state closer to realizing coverage.
“Nobody should face the choice of having to leave to start a family. I’m grateful that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle were able to unite” on the measure, Helmer said. “I think the signing of this bill should give a lot of hope to a lot of people that we are going to be there for them, and this is exactly the kind of legislating that we should be doing.”
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