New York City Council pushes for IVF coverage for gay male city employees

NEW YORK — The Adams administration is facing a legal and legislative battle over the meaning of “infertility.”

The New York City Council’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus is pushing Mayor Eric Adams to extend IVF coverage to gay men who work for the city but struggle to access the benefit.

That’s because, according to the caucus, the city health plan only covers cycles of in vitro fertilization for employees who can show documentation of infertility — defined as the incapacity to impregnate someone else or to conceive. The definition is memorialized in a 2020 state law that requires insurance plans to cover three cycles of IVF for people facing infertility.

“As members of the City Council, we strongly believe that the family building benefits should be offered to all employees, and it cannot be conditioned on a definition of heteronormative infertility,” the caucus wrote in a letter to Adams obtained by POLITICO. “Although the City’s discriminatory policy predates this Administration, the current Administration can solve this problem.”

The city is already facing a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that the policy discriminates against same-sex couples who cannot obtain an infertility diagnosis. That case was filed in May by Corey Briskin, a former prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who alleges he was told in 2021 that he and his spouse were ineligible for IVF coverage.

The exclusion has significant financial implications for municipal workers, often already working for lower salaries than they might enjoy in the private sector. A single IVF cycle can cost tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket, and more than one cycle is usually needed.

On Tuesday, the City Council’s health committee will host a hearing on a bill that would require the city to cover assisted reproduction services and adoption for municipal employees — no infertility diagnosis needed.

And Briskin, whose case inspired the legislation, is slated to testify.

The measure is sponsored by Council Member Lynn Schulman, who chairs the health committee and is also a member of the council’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus.

“We’re hoping that the City Council’s great leadership on this issue will rub off on Mayor Adams,” Peter Romer-Friedman, Briskin’s lawyer, said in an interview.

Mayoral spokesperson Liz Garcia said the city’s health plan covers IVF treatments for municipal employees “regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation” — with eligibility based on state rules and guidance — but it does not cover costs associated with egg or sperm donation or with surrogacy.

“The Adams administration proudly supports the rights of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers to access the health care they need,” Garcia said in a statement.

This comes as IVF is under fire by some segments of conservatives across the country. The Southern Baptist Convention last week voted to oppose it — a signal that anti-abortion activists on the right see the procedure as the next stage of their movement.

A version of this story first appeared Tuesday in New York Playbook. Subscribe here.