from States Newsroom
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By Elisha Brown |
“They don’t realize how much military people need IVF.”
— Elijah Campo, Missouri father and Starbucks manager
Brianna and Elijah Campo admire their son, Wesley, on Aug. 21, 2026, at their home on Missouri’s Fort Leonard Wood, the Army base where Brianna is stationed.(Photo by Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent)
The military offers limited benefits for service members and their relatives who are seeking in vitro fertilization or similar treatments.
Brianna Campo, a 23-year-old active duty member of the Army based on Missouri’s Fort Leonard Wood, and her husband, Elijah, faced sticker shock when they sought fertility care last year, Missouri Independent’s Anna Spoerre reports.
Doctors at Washington University in St. Louis quoted them an out-of-pocket cost of $20,000. The Campos could not afford that, but they wanted to have a baby.
Elijah decided to leave college to work at a Starbucks outside the military base. The coffee chain has comprehensive fertility care insurance coverage and offers 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
TRICARE, the military’s health insurance, only covers in vitro fertilization if providers can prove that a patient’s infertility stemmed from active duty injury. Broader fertility treatments are available at just eight military hospitals across the country for service members and their families.
“They don’t realize how much military people need IVF,” Elijah told the Independent.
The Campos embarked on their IVF journey by halting vacations, canceling subscriptions and shopping secondhand for discounted baby items.
“Depending on your rank, depending on your pay, like, that is a huge financial burden that you’re taking on,” Brianna Campo said.
Elijah’s insurance ultimately paid for IVF and the birth, cutting the costs of the procedure by half. Their son, Wesley, was born in July.
Efforts to expand fertility care coverage for members of the military have repeatedly stalled in Congress. But the U.S. Department of Defense recently announced a three-year fertility treatment pilot program for certain service members.
Starting in September, active duty members deployed to hazardous countries, those who face deployment within four months or service members separated from their partner for six months or more can seek reimbursement for egg or sperm retrieval, testing, freezing and storage, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.
The pilot stems from the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act and caps reimbursement annually up to $500 for sperm cryopreservation and up to $10,000 for egg freezing.
THE POD
Next on our Stories From The States podcast: States move to fortify elections against Trump
Since his loss in the 2020 election, President Donald Trump has continued to deny the official results and sow doubt about election integrity. With an executive order to restrict mail-in voting and lawsuits demanding states turn over their voter rolls, Trump and his administration have been pushing for more federal involvement in running elections. That has some state leaders preparing for worst-case scenarios.
In Episode 43 of Stories From The States, you’ll hear from Stateline staff writer Kevin Hardy. He spoke to some state attorneys general about how they’re preparing for the possibility of federal agents at the polls and contested election results.
THE BEAT
Idaho federal judge narrows abortion ruling to only protect Boise doctor who filed lawsuit
Last week, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador appealed a federal ruling that said the state cannot regulate abortion when a pregnancy threatens a person's physical or mental health. The judge narrowed the ruling Tuesday to only apply to the Boise doctor who challenged the law. (Photo courtesy of the Idaho Attorney General’s Office)
An Idaho federal judge has narrowed a previous ruling that had allowed abortions to protect a patient’s health or from self-harm to only apply to the Boise doctor who challenged the law.
The narrowed ruling issued Tuesday means that Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador and the Ada County prosecutor may not enforce Idaho’s felony abortion ban in cases where Dr. Stacy Seyb administered the procedure because of serious risk of harm due to physical health or mental health concerns.
Other doctors in Idaho will still be subject to Idaho’s near-total ban, which includes an exception to prevent the death of the pregnant woman but does not include exceptions to prevent her death from self-harm. Elective abortions are completely banned in the state.
U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill narrowed the ruling at the request of Labrador, who argued in a recent motion that Winmill’s initial decision was too broad.
Winmill agreed with Labrador, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court cases that ruled federal judges in most situations cannot issue “universal injunctions,” which block laws nationwide or more broadly than against the plaintiffs in the case.
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THE PULSE
TX: California couple confront their surrogate in a Texas court as dispute over newborn escalates | The Associated Press
MI: Art exhibit brings stories of Black mothers lost to maternal mortality to Detroit | Michigan Advance
US: Why some couples are combining a European vacation with their IVF treatments | The Washington Post
US: His research on pregnant opioid users was widely celebrated. Auditors and experts found major flaws. | ProPublica
ABORTION ACCESS IN THE U.S.
Track state-level developments on reproductive rights anytime at News From The States. Send tips and thoughts to ✉️ [email protected], and follow her on Bluesky @elishabrown.
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