Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today to request that we have unanimous consent for S. 3313, which is the Women Veterans and Other Health Care Improvement Act of 2012, which was unanimously supported by the members of the Veterans' Affairs Committee to be moved out of this body today. This legislation not only builds upon previous laws that we have passed to improve VA services for women veterans and veterans with families, but it also brings a new focus to the need for the VA to do more to help women veterans and the spouses of male veterans have access to assistance for one of the most impactful and serious wounds of these wars, reproductive and urinary tract trauma. As many of you know, the nature of the current conflicts and the use of improvised explosive devices leaves servicemembers far more susceptible to those kinds of injuries. In fact, Army data shows that between 2003 and 2011 nearly 2,000 of our servicemembers have suffered those kinds of battle injuries. Like so many of our veterans, these men and women come home and look to returning to their lives, to finding employment, and to starting a family. Yet what they find when they go to the VA is that the fertility services that are available don't meet their complex needs for these injuries. In fact, veterans suffering from those kinds of injuries find that the VA now is specifically barred from providing more advanced assisted reproductive techniques, such as in vitro fertilization or IVF.…”