Pentagon to Offer Plan to Store Eggs and Sperm to Retain Young Troops
By Michael S. Schmidt,
The New York Times
| 02. 03. 2016
Untitled Document
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter believes he has come up with a way to help the Pentagon retain troops: freezing sperm and eggs.
As part of an initiative to make military service more appealing and family friendly, Mr. Carter has created a pilot program that will pay for troops to have their reproductive cells preserved.
The goal is to give those in uniform the peace of mind that if they are hurt on the battlefield — hundreds of veterans suffered injuries to their reproductive organs in Iraq and Afghanistan — they would still be able to have children.
The program is also meant to encourage women to stay in the military during their 20s and 30s, a time when many leave after giving birth. By freezing their eggs, they will have the flexibility to remain deployed overseas or otherwise pursue their careers and put off having children.
Women who reach 10 years of service — what Mr. Carter called “their peak years for starting a family” — have a retention rate that is 30 percent lower...
Related Articles
By Alondra Nelson, Science | 09.11.2025
In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months have made visible the stakes of the unchecked use...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...
By Julie Métraux, Mother Jones | 09.23.2025