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The Department of Veterans Affairs’ newest policy promising to use American tax dollars to fund the creation of motherless and fatherless children via in vitro fertilization for single and same-sex veterans raises “a plethora of ethical concerns and questions,” four members of the House Freedom Caucus say.
In a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, Republican Reps. Matt Rosendale, Mary Miller, Bob Good, and Josh Brecheen penned “very strong objections” to the new policy due to the fertility industry’s longstanding immoral and unethical practices.
“The new VA policy is shocking not only on a moral level, but on a political and legal level as well,” the Republicans wrote.
The VA previously limited taxpayer-funded assisted reproductive technology to service members and veterans who married to someone of the opposite sex, could use his own gametes, and had received an infertility diagnosis linked to injury, illness, or a service-connected disability. It wasn’t until an abortion and transgender activist group brought a lawsuit against the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs that the federal agencies changed their tune.
Under the new ART policy, which the Department of Defense also sought to adopt, the VA will “offer IVF benefits to qualifying Veterans regardless of marital status and – for the first time – allow the use of donor eggs, sperm, and embryos.” McDonough claimed the changes have “long been a priority for us” and promised the VA “expects to be ready to deliver this care to Veterans nationwide in the coming weeks.”
The Republicans noted that IVF is “morally dubious” and “should not be subsidized by the American taxpayer” because it requires creating, holding in freezers, and destroying millions of tiny human beings. Embryos that are “abandoned, or cruelly discarded” during grading are sentenced to a freezer indefinitely, with one million other cryopreserved embryos.
“Parents’ uncertainty of what to do with the additional embryos and inclination to leave
them frozen for many years rather than discarding them points to their inherent humanity,” the letter continued.
The lawmakers also questioned whether the VA has the legal authority to make such a drastic change without congressional consent.
“It appears that either the VA always had this authority and is responding to the appeals of activists or is possibly violating existing law. A few of my Democrat colleagues [sic] have previously introduced legislation to expand IVF at the VA, a tacit acknowledgment that the VA does not have authority under existing law to make this kind of announcement,” the representatives wrote.
Rosendale and his House allies did not stop at protesting the new policy. They asked the VA to answer what it plans to do with the “surplus embryos” inevitably created during IVF and where those embryos will be stored. The Republicans also asked how many embryos the VA has “already destroyed or frozen” and how many more it expects after this policy is implemented.
“The VA must focus on providing world-class healthcare and benefits to veterans, not trying to remake the nuclear family,” the letter concluded.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
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