{"id":145262,"date":"2023-08-03T08:15:53","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T12:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=145262"},"modified":"2023-08-02T18:15:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T22:15:43","slug":"lawsuits-filed-against-dod-and-va-over-fertility-treatment-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=145262","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuits filed against DOD and VA over fertility treatment policies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/womens-march-on-washington.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-76882\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/womens-march-on-washington-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/womens-march-on-washington-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/womens-march-on-washington.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From Military.com:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The VA&#8217;s refusal to provide IVF to [these] veterans is not merely a failure. It is blatant discrimination and bigotry,&#8221; said Renee Burbank, director of litigation at the National Veterans Legal Services Program, during a press conference Wednesday in New York.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>Tricare does not cover IVF. And under DoD rules, the use of donor eggs or sperm is prohibited &#8212; 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Military Times has more information at this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2023\/08\/02\/veteran-advocates-sue-over-discriminatory-fertility-treatment-policies-dod-va.html\">link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Organization for Women was one of three groups that filed lawsuits related to fertility &hellip; <a title=\"Lawsuits filed against DOD and VA over fertility treatment policies\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=145262\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Lawsuits filed against DOD and VA over fertility treatment policies<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,282,13,118,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues","category-sjw-idiocy","category-society","category-veterans-issues","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}