Helping Veterans

Imagine being seriously wounded while serving in the military. The Veterans Administration (VA) covers all of your medical treatment. But, if your injuries have impaired your reproductive system so that when you want to start a family, the doctors say you need IVF — then you are out of luck. IVF is banned for the VA.

That’s what motivated RESOLVE and veterans groups to fight to change the VA policy. In late 2016, we won a significant victory: we got Congress to pass a bill allowing the VA to cover IVF for wounded veterans. And we did it again in 2018. BUT — the benefits are good only through September 2022.

We’re continuing the fight for justice in reproduction for veterans, to extend the benefit past 2019. And let’s be clear: we’re beginning with coverage for wounded veterans, but our vision is coverage for every veteran. Share your support for this legislation with your Members of Congress. 

Make #IVF4Vets a permanent program. Our advocates were successful in securing funding so that the Veterans Administration can offer IVF for wounded Vets in FY 2017 and FY 2018, but it did not lift the ban permanently. We will ask Congress to make #IVF4Vets permanent through passage of the Veterans Families Health Services Act, S.1280 and H.R.2734 and/or Veterans Infertility Treatment Act of 2021, HR 1957. 

The U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives passed the MilCon-VA Appropriations bill for FY 2017 which included an amendment to allocate funds to the Veterans Administration to offer IVF to wounded Veterans and provides for adoption assistance to wounded Veterans. The appropriation will allow the VA to offer IVF to wounded Veterans for the first time ever, for FY 2017 and FY 2018. The passage of this bill signifies a tremendous victory for RESOLVE and its partners, and especially for its advocates, who have advocated for this change at every Advocacy Day for the past four years.

Though DoD can provide IVF treatment, too many service members are excluded from eligibility for this and other treatments. The VA is completely barred from providing IVF services because of an outdated regulation. Introduced on February 4, 2019, HR 955 would improve the reproductive assistance provided by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to severely wounded, ill, or injured members of the Armed Forces, veterans, and their spouses or partners, and for other purposes.

Through the Women Veterans and Families Health Services Act of 2019, veterans have a chance at the family they always dreamed of. For many wounded veterans, assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF may be their only hope of ever having a biological child with their spouse/partner.

Veterans Infertility Treatment Act of 2023, H.R. 544

Other resources:

• RESOLVE’s Statement to House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Veterans’ Access to Reproductive Healthcare, July 1, 2020