Tell Legislators to Support Reproductive Treatments for LGBTQ+ Families
On your ballot this November, there will be a non-binding advisory question regarding insurance coverage for medically assisted reproductive treatments. While this question is not binding, it will serve as a way for Illinois legislators to better understand your needs and concerns around family planning. This is especially important for LGBTQ+ families as the cost associated with having a family can often be much higher for queer couples. It is critical for Illinois voters to understand what the assisted reproductive question is and how it connects to the expansion of family planning services for LGBTQ+ couples.
An advisory question is a type of ballot measure that asks voters a non-binding question. The largest difference between an advisory vote and any other type of ballot measure is that the outcome of the ballot question is not legally binding and will not directly result in a new, changed, or rejected law or constitutional amendment. Rather, the advisory question allows voters to express their general opinion on important issues. The Assisted Reproductive Healthcare Advisory Question is asking voters to, “advise state officials on whether to provide for medically assisted reproductive treatments, including in vitro fertilization, to be covered by any health insurance plan in Illinois that provides full coverage to pregnancy benefits.” While Illinois does have some family planning insurance coverage protections for LGBTQ+ couples, this question is essentially asking if individual Illinois health plans should be required to fully cover all assisted reproductive treatments without any copays or limits. A “yes” vote would support advising state officials to provide for medically assisted reproductive treatments while a “no” vote opposes advising state officials to provide for medically assisted reproductive treatments.
Illinois has several pieces of legislation that already support LGBTQ+ couples and their family planning needs. HB 3709 expanded the definition of fertility to include a person’s inability to reproduce either as a single individual or with a partner without medical intervention. Previously, infertility was defined as a failure to establish a pregnancy or to carry a pregnancy to live birth after several months of regular, unprotected sexual intercourse. This automatically excluded same-sex couples and single individuals from insurance coverage for infertility treatments. For example, a woman from Illinois sued Blue Cross Blue Shield after learning her fertility treatments with her same-sex partner weren’t going to be covered because their IVF definitions only offered full coverage for IVF after couples failed to conceive after 12 months. This meant that many same-sex couples couldn’t receive insurance coverage or had reduced coverage for participating in many of the same procedures heterosexual and cisgender couples were accessing. In addition to HB 3709, Illinois also has the Reproductive Health Act (RHA) a law (Public Act 101-0013) Pritzker signed in 2019 and added to in 2023 (Public Act 102-1117) that helps protect access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Much of this legislation was enacted because accessing family planning like IVF for LGBTQ+ couples was difficult and costly.
The Assisted Reproductive Healthcare Advisory Question could be an important next step in letting legislators know there are still needs around access to IVF and other family planning services for LGBTQ+ families. This is becoming more important as attempts in Congress to codify the right to IVF access have failed. The cost of IVF is in the tens of thousands of dollars. A single IVF cycle – a period of about three weeks in which eggs are collected from an ovary, fertilized by sperm in a lab, and then transferred to a uterus – can cost upwards of $20,000, including medication. LGBTQ+ individuals statistically have higher rates of poverty and financial instability, so the high out-of-pocket costs can leave many queer families unable to access these services. These costs can increase even more as LGBTQ+ couples may have the added expenses of needing sperm donors, egg donors, surrogates, or gestational carriers. This advisory question is one way that voters can urge legislators to take another look at how the current IVF protections in Illinois can be more inclusive and less cost prohibitive. This may include requiring unlimited coverage for all IVF treatments or providing financial support for surrogacy. Let’s ensure we are supporting LGBTQ+ families across Illinois!
Election Day is November 5! You can register to vote here. You can also check your registration or apply for an absentee ballot. You can also visit the Illinois Board of Elections for more information.
To learn more about how Howard Brown Health contributes to vital advocacy work and has an impact on local, state, and federal policymaking, please visit our Advocacy webpage.