Data confirm that access to IVF does not increase a country’s birthrate.

Yesterday, Donald Trump signed an executive order “that aims to expand Americans’ access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) by directing the executive branch to look into ways to reduce financial barriers associated with the expensive fertility treatment.” (As reported by our indefatigable news staff.)

In the fact sheet on the topic, the White House asserts that Trump is delivering on his promise “to advance IVF and help American families with the associated costs so American families can have more babies.”

I’m all for American families having more babies — but IVF usage does not produce an appreciable spike in a nation’s fertility rate.

Look at Japan, for example. The country’s birth rate has slowly but continuously declined over the last 50 years. In 2023, the number of Japanese babies born hit an all-time low, with a total fertility rate of 1.2 babies born per woman of reproductive age. (A rate of 2.1 is needed for sustained population replacement.)

Simultaneously, the number of IVF treatment cycles administered in Japan has never been higher. Approximately one in every 12 babies in the country was born through IVF in 2021. In other words, as access to IVF treatment increased, the country’s birth rate decreased.

It is clear that access to IVF did not increase a country’s birthrate. Rather, the 21st-century norms for women — to work more, start families later, not start families at all, or have only one child — contributed most significantly to the low fertility rate.

As one of the countermeasures against the declining birthrate, the Japanese government extended health insurance to cover medicine, surgery, intrauterine insemination, and some assisted reproductive technology procedures in 2022. They are aware that the fertility numbers are headed in the wrong direction, but offering IVF as the solution is like putting a water-logged bandaid on the Titanic.

More often than not, IVF is used by women above the age of 35. Almost all IVF users are above the age of 30. Because a woman’s fertility starts to decline by age 30, the best way to boost the national fertility rate is for women to start families in their 20s.

Rather than expanding a technology that leaves millions of embryos neglected in freezers, the administration should focus on making modern American life more family-friendly.