This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, April 16th.

I'm Amina Serna filling in for Brian today. Now we'll take a closer look at in vitro fertilization, also known as

IVF. IVF is the most common type of infertility treatment in the United States. More than 8 million

babies have been born via IVF since 1978. That's according to the Cleveland Clinic. And IVF is only growing in popularity. About four in 10

Americans, that's 42 percent, say they've used fertility treatments or personally know somebody who has

in 2023. That's up from 33 percent in 2018, according to Pew. The demand has created an industry to store frozen embryos that have

yet or may never get implanted to go on and become babies. Beyond the personal ethics, the fate of

those embryos is also a political story. President Trump recently declared himself the quote

fertilization president while touting efforts to expand IVF.

But at the same time, the team that tracked how well in vitro fertilization worked across the U.S.

was a ruptly cut as part of the sweeping layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

A new three-part series for the New York Times explores the legal and ethical considerations

people have to manage when they create embryos as part of the IVF process. We're joined now by

its author. Anna Louise Sussman is a freelance journalist covering gender, economics, health,

and reproduction. And welcome to WMIC. Thank you so much economics, health, and reproduction.

Anna, welcome to WMIC.

Thank you so much for having me, Amina.

Anna, before we dig into some of your reporting, you note, quote, a majority of IVF patients are white. And even in states where the cost of IVF is covered by private insurance,

black and Hispanic women are less likely to use the

technology. The Trump administration says it wants to expand access to IVF, as I said in the

intro. But broadly speaking, what is the landscape now and how accessible is it?

Well, the first thing to know is like a lot of health care in the U.S., because we don't have a socialized medicine, health care is expensive.

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