Lawsuits filed against DOD and VA over fertility treatment policies

| August 3, 2023

The National Organization for Women was one of three groups that filed lawsuits related to fertility treatments. The Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, were the defendants listed in the lawsuit. The lawsuit argues that DOD and VA fertility treatment policies violate anti-discrimination laws. The lawsuit takes issue with the fact that one must be married, must have service-connected illness or injury, and that individuals must be capable of providing their own sperm and egg.

From Military.com:

The DoD and VA policies violate anti-discrimination laws because they exclude single veterans, as well as same-sex and unmarried couples, according to NOW’s New York City chapter, the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic and the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which filed suits Wednesday in Manhattan and Boston.

The lawsuits challenge requirements that to access IVF treatment service members must be married, have a service-connected illness or injury, and be capable of using their own sperm and eggs to conceive a child.

“The VA’s refusal to provide IVF to [these] veterans is not merely a failure. It is blatant discrimination and bigotry,” said Renee Burbank, director of litigation at the National Veterans Legal Services Program, during a press conference Wednesday in New York.

The DoD covers fertility counseling, in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technologies for married service members whose infertility is tied to a military injury or related illness.

Other married troops can go to one of seven military treatment facilities that offer IVF, artificial insemination and other fertility services to receive services at cost. And they can use Tricare, the military’s civilian health benefits program, for limited services such as diagnoses of conditions that cause infertility and correction of medical issues that may be the source.

Tricare does not cover IVF. And under DoD rules, the use of donor eggs or sperm is prohibited — an exclusion that restricts same-sex couples, even those who are legally married and who have a service-connected fertility condition, from using the benefit.

Military Times has more information at this link.

Category: Military issues, SJW Idiocy, Society, Veterans Issues, Veterans' Affairs Department

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Odie

And yet NOW doesn’t throw a fit when biological males compete in women’s sports and dominate what women have trained for and worked their butts off for, only to come in second place to a guy who couldn’t even place in the men’s side of the sport he is competing in.

What’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right is the world we’re in now.

AW1Ed

I suppose the DOD/VA policy that IVF is only available for persons who possess an actual womb makes it transphobic as well?

Point-and-laugh.

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Forest Bondurant

Does the lawsuit include IFV for men trying to transition?

TopGoz

“If the Marines (or Army, Navy, Air Farce) wanted you to have a kid, they would have issued you one.”

SFC D

The Army did issue a me a kid. Multiple kids. A whole fuckin’ platoon of cable dawgs!

ninja

“The potential class-action lawsuit against the VA was filed by Air Force veteran Ashley Sheffield and her wife who have struggled to start a family, according to legal representatives.”

You can read Air Force’s Ashley Sheffield’s 20 page lawsuit at this site/link as well as watching the news video about her.

You Be The Judge.

“Mass. Veteran Sues VA, Saying She Was Denied IVF Over Same-Sex Marriage”

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/mass-veteran-sues-va-saying-she-was-denied-ivf-over-same-sex-marriage/3078593/?amp=1

“An Air Force veteran of nearly 20 years has filed a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs alleging she was denied reproductive services because she is married to a woman.”

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Wireman611

Has she never heard of a turkey baster?

ninja

😆😂🤣😅😆😂🤣😅👌👍👏😉😎

Sapper3307

Blarf!

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Roh-Dog

For a steak dinner with a couple Scotches after a couple of Scotches I can solve the problem.

I’ll just have to clear it by the missus.

I can be reached at 1(555)IVE-DONE [worse].

5JC

Going to give rainbow muffin top a hard pass. Sure, 30 years ago catch me drunk and maybe…. But these days I have what people call “standards”. Does that make me a racist? I have trouble keeping up.

Sapper3307

Who is on top?😂

AW1Ed

IDC SARC, gotcher ears on, boy?

KoB

IDC SARC won’t hit anything that looks as manly as he is.

5JC

Tricare is very good at offering 1970s standards of medical care. However; last I checked if someone is single and they have a kid, they need to have some kind of family care plan or they become non deployable. So they want the military to help them become non-deployable? I can see where that would be a conflict of interest.

The VA is an entirely different thing I don’t know anything about the system because I never had to use it. I’ve heard how wonderful and fast and reliable they are. Like 80% of the time they make an appointment for you before you die of whatever you’re illness is, or maybe 70%. I don’t know. 70% and 80% are both passing grades.

ninja

“However; last I checked if someone is single and they have a kid, they need to have some kind of family care plan or they become non deployable.”

I THINK that rule also pertains to dual married service members as well as men who have dependents.

In fact, if we are not mistaken, the Army requires (or used to require) ALL Soldiers have a Family Care Plan if they have dependents.

If we are wrong, please correct us. That was the ROE when we served….makes logical sense. Did not matter what gender you were or your marital status, especially if you were going into a war zone.

5JC

If you are single and have sole custody then you need one. Or you can get kicked out.

I will point out that civil rights don’t cover marital status at the federal level.

SFC D

Single parents and dual military, yes.

5JC

Yes, also dual military.

KoB

Good Grief! I need a drink 🥃!

Prior Service

So the military is supposed to arrange for little x to have two mommies. Using someone else’s biological contributions. So they can grow up very, very, confused. Umm. Got it.

Green Thumb

Reap what you sow….

Odie

Yeah, but in this case, it’s the kids that ultimately pay. But mommies are happy.

sapper3307

Attention on deck!
John J Grandzio,, fake green beret 2020 just got busted is Vermont for being a felon with guns & ammo and importing silencers.

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Green Thumb

Loser.

5JC

Yeah, who buys the paper anymore anyway?

Sapper3307

Thats for our local yard sales ads

Sapper3307

I spent $1 to buy the paper today for this.

Blaster

I think that one of those top two ribbons is to a medal only award to officers.

Blaster

NM- it says “usually” awarded to officers.

5JC

I Don’t think by regulation there are any medals that can only go to officers. In reality, most of the senior medals not for heroic actions only go to 06/W5 and above and sometimes E9s.

Odie

Call hunters lawyer. Or hold hunter up as a reason not to do time.

rgr769

There is nothing quite like a fake badge hunter.

Sparks

“Everywhere is dykes and fairies
Freaks and hairyies,
Tell me where is sanity?

Dave Hardin

AWOL

SFC D

Sanity seems to be undefinable these days.

Slow Joe

Wasn’t there a report from DOD doctors saying that the percentage of lost pregnancies in the military had gone up 500 percent after the COVID vaccine?

I remember seeing something like that. Obviously I wasn’t paying attention.

5JC

There have been all kinds of phony memes put out into the net. No actual research supports anything of the kind.

I will tell you that even before COVID, the odds of two people with homegrown vaginas having sex and getting pregnant was close to zero. The odds of two people with homegrown penises and balls getting pregnant was somewhat less than zero. Now the odds may have increased since COVID, but I haven’t seen any research to that affect.

Last edited 1 year ago by 5JC
Blaster

What about the straight couples that just can’t conceive? If we are going help all the fringes and single Soldiers, we damn sure should help the ones that have an actual medical issue.

USAFRetired

I dealt with the military (Air Force) twice in the latter stages of my career in this area. Once I weighed in on the bureaucracy on behalf of one of my NCOs and his wife, and several years later and at a different base, for my own wife.

SFC D

I had a young SPC, maybe 23, had three kids from two different baby mommas (one had twins). Went to the doc, wanted a vasectomy. Army wouldn’t perform the operation on a young, single Soldier. I guess he was a victim of discrimination. Who knew?

David

Whine on: can’t get VA care for the wife, after 4 years and an honorable discharge. Not enough money in the VA system for her because we made too much. VA has enough money for the sexually confused, though. Whine off now.

timactual

You spent four (4) years in the military and expect free VA medical care for your wife?!? Of course there is NO, zero, money in the VA system for that, the Veterans Administration is for veterans.