Newsweek Quotes Professor Ikemoto on State's New Infertility Treatment Insurance Law

Professor Lisa Ikemoto spoke to Newsweek for a June 26 story about a new California law (SB 729) that requires employers with 100 more workers and state insurance plans to cover infertility and IVF treatment for all Californians regardless of sexual orientation, marriage status or gender expression or identity.

The new law is significant in ordering coverage of infertility and IVF services to a degree most states do not, and in defining “infertility” to apply to LGBTQ+ people, Ikemoto told Newsweek, and will “overall, expand access to fertility services” that can be very expensive. But she noted that the law does not “address concerns that women’s health policy advocates have raised about lack of data on health risks some services may cause.” Nor does it apply to individual insurance or MediCal managed care.

“The coverage mandate will not help most Californians,” Ikemoto said.

Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law Lisa Ikemoto has written extensively on genetic and reproductive technology, the regulation of fertility and pregnancy, and race and gender disparities in health care. Her current work examines emerging issues in regenerative medicine, including stem cell research, and the human tissues market.