Senate bill would expand fertility coverage for veterans

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

The Senate is considering a bill that would expand medical benefits for severely injured service members so that they and their spouses or surrogates can have children through in vitro fertilization.

The Department of Veterans Affairs now covers a range of medical treatment for veterans, including some infertility care, but the legislation specifically authorizes the agency to cover IVF and to pay for procedures now provided for some critically injured active-duty soldiers.

Six years ago, a roadside bomb exploded outside Andrew Robinson's Humvee in Iraq, breaking the Marine staff sergeant's neck and leaving him without use of his legs. It also cast doubt on his ability to father a child, a gnawing emotional wound for a then-23-year-old who had planned to start a family with his wife of less than two years.

The catastrophic spinal cord injury meant the couple's best hope for children was in vitro fertilization, an expensive and time-consuming medical procedure whose cost isn't covered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Robinson and his wife were forced to pay out of pocket, with help from a doctor's discount and drugs donated by other patients.

The bill's meant to help wounded veterans start families as they return home from war and to address a harrowing consequence of combat that can radically change a couple's marriage but receives less attention than post-traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries.

"It's common sense: a male veteran cannot have a kid by himself. It doesn't happen. They need obviously to have it with their wife or a partner," said Robinson, of Florence, N.J., who is now 29 and was injured in a 2006 explosion in Al Anbar province. "So for the VA to say, `Oh, we can only cover this part of it,' it just kind of doesn't make sense."

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Considering that the military is one of the few places left that hasn't been overrun with metrosexuals, I'm all for helping them to reproduce as often as possible