The LGBTQ movement’s latest win is redefining infertility with a “new and inclusive definition” that is likely to spark a national wave of insurance coverage expansions for non-traditional couples. Analysts, though, say the change could also lead to a wave of lawsuits and higher insurance premiums for all Americans.

An influential group of reproductive doctors, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, says the redefinition is in response to the “needs of a diverse patient population” and it hope this will spark insurance changes on a national level. The new definition is aimed at expanding coverage for fertility treatments for gay and lesbian couples who are biologically incapable of conceiving naturally. 

“This change better reflects the empirical clinical reality. It now includes ALL causes of infertility,” a spokesman for the organization, Sean Tipton, tells The New York Sun in an email. “We hope that this will help insurance companies and employers do the right thing and offer appropriate coverage for reproductive health.”

Yet the new definition — which is likely to spark expanded coverage for procedures such as in-vitro fertilization for LGBTQ couples — could cost taxpayers and make private insurance premiums more expensive. IVF, a procedure that fertilizes eggs by sperm in a lab, is estimated to cost anywhere from $12,000 to $25,000 a cycle.

In an economy already crippled by inflation, increasing insurance costs are “everyone’s concerns,” a Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow, Sarah Parshall Perry, tells the Sun.  

“The increase in required provision of services naturally has an impact on consumers who are forced to foot the bill on this,” Ms. Perry says. If the new definition leads to private insurers being forced to cover fertility services for nontraditional couples, it will make private insurance more costly and will “force the American taxpayer, with these federal programs like Medicaid, to fund the bill there as well.”

“Fertility equality” has been an emerging national topic. Earlier this year, two gay men filed a complaint against New York City, arguing that its employee insurance plan discriminated against them because it didn’t cover IVF for them as a gay couple.

They said the city’s policy only covered IVF in cases of infertility, defined as “the inability to conceive after 12 months of unprotected intercourse.” The couple argued that intercourse was interpreted as being between a male and female and thus discriminated against them. 

“There’s no question” that redefining infertility will lead to more lawsuits like the New York case, Ms. Perry says. “In fact, I would say that was probably the vanguard for what we’re seeing now.”

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s new definition is less specific to women and instead “reflects that all persons, regardless of marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity deserve equal access to reproductive medicine,” the organization maintains.

The new definition also includes the need for intervention, including “the use of donor gametes or donor embryos” to achieve pregnancy “as an individual or with a partner.” 

Under President Biden’s administration, Ms. Perry says she has seen “expansive application of gender identity definitions” in “every aspect of modern government and nearly every aspect of human cultural life.”

It doesn’t surprise her that the Society for Reproductive Medicine “is also expanding a definition to be more inclusive when previously there would be nothing to support the argument that the definition of infertility up to this point was exclusive,” Ms. Perry says. 

Gay rights groups have been at odds in recent months over how much further the movement needs to go, as The New York Sun has reported. The society says it hopes the “inclusive definition helps ensure that anyone seeking to build a family has equitable access to infertility treatment and care.”

The society recently appointed as its president Paula Amato, whose recent work has focused on “gender affirming” care and access to hormones, Ms. Perry notes.