A new notice from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) announced that, as part of a three-year pilot program, it will reimburse active military personnel who freeze their eggs or sperm, to a maximum of $10,000 per year.

Key Takeaways:

• The Department of Defense has announced it will reimburse eligible service members $500 for sperm freezing and $10,000 for egg freezing.

• The initiative is part of a three-year pilot program.

• Egg freezing and IVF come with considerable risks, as well as ethical problems.

The Details:

Per the notice issued on August 13, eligible service members will be reimbursed up to $500 per year for sperm freezing and $10,000 per year for eggs, with coverage including retrieval, freezing, storage, and shipping.

The initiative applies to active duty service members who have received orders for duty in a dangerous country, or who are ordered to be separated from a partner for at least 180 days.

The notice specifies:

... a covered member means a member of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, or Space Force serving on active duty who has either received orders (including deployment orders) for duty for which the member may receive hazardous duty pay; whom the Secretary determines is likely to receive such orders in the next 120 days; or who will, under orders, be geographically separated from a spouse, domestic partner, or dating partner for a period of not less than 180 days, including sea duty.

Services can be obtained at military medical treatment facilities that specialize in reproductive health, as well as civilian fertility clinics.

The initiative is slated to take effect September 14.

Why It Matters:

In the past, egg freezing was considered a last-resort measure, especially considering both freezing and IVF (which utilizes those eggs and/or frozen sperm to produce a child) come with a number of considerable risks.

As Live Action News has previously pointed out, egg retrieval carries risks for women, including:

• bleeding

• infection

• damage to the bowel, bladder, or blood vessels

• miscarriage

• ectopic pregnancy

The procedure can also result in a rare but life-threating condition known as ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can occur in women who take fertility medication to stimulate egg growth.

The effectiveness of egg freezing has also been shown to be low. According to The Federalist, “failure rates in the fertility industry are extremely high. […] In January, scientists in the United Kingdom presented data that suggests the live birth rate using a patient’s own frozen eggs is a mere 18 percent." Oddly, the data also suggested that "The success rate is 31 percent when donor eggs are used.”

Incentivizing egg and sperm freezing sends one message to active duty service members — now isn't the time to have a child, and you can always delay it. And the government is willing to pay these military personnel to put it off until later.

Unfortunately, this carries the underlying assumption that someone who freezes their gametes will actually be able to conceive later; this isn't always the case.

This isn't the only issue; female service members have previously spoken out receiving pressure to abort their preborn children.

Bethany Saros was stationed in Iraq when she became unexpectedly pregnant. She wrote about her experience in an essay for Salon:

“One of the stigmas attached to a female getting pregnant on a deployment is the assumption that she did it on purpose. It’s whispered about any time the word ‘pregnancy’ comes up right before or during a combat tour. 

The unspoken code is that a good soldier will have an abortion, continue the mission, and get some sympathy because she chose duty over motherhood. But for the woman who chooses motherhood over duty, well, she must have been trying to get out of deployment."

The Bottom Line:

Incentivizing egg and sperm freezing perpetuates the "unspoken code" that Saros speaks of. They, along with IVF, are ethically fraught, risky procedures.