U.S. Federal Government Recognizes the Preborn as Children

Family Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (FSGLI) coverage provides life insurance coverage for the spouses and dependent children of all Active Duty, Ready Reserve and National Guard members who have full-time SGLI coverage.

A dependent child includes any unmarried child in one of the following categories:

• natural born child
• legally adopted child
• stepchild who is a member of the Servicemember’s household
• unmarried child between the ages of 18 and 23 who is pursuing a course of instruction at an approved educational institution
• child who became permanently incapable of self-support before age 18
• stillborn child whose death occurs before expulsion, extraction, or delivery, and not for the purposes of abortion, and:
  1. whose fetal weight is 350 grams or more; or
  2. if the fetal weight is unknown, whose duration in utero was 20 or more completed weeks of gestation, calculated from the date the last normal menstrual period began to the date of expulsion, extraction, or delivery.

This recognition by the United States Government of the equivalent value of a prenatal child’s life with that of a born child’s life highlights our society’s schizophrenic approach to abortion. On one hand, our government subsidizes life insurance for a child lost to miscarriage after 20 weeks of life in the womb, unless that child’s life was intentionally ended by their mother through abortion. On the other hand, they fail to recognize the value of a preborn child’s life at 19 weeks, 6 days; whether lost to miscarriage or purposely killed.

Further, our government actually values the life of a prenatal child lost to miscarriage if they weigh 350 grams or more, but neglects to recognize that same child’s value if they weighed 349 grams or less. We are actually weighing the value of human beings as if they were cuts of meat.

While we should be heartened that the United States Government has extended the definition of child to the preborn, and by default, life insurance coverage, we should demand that this definition be extended to all children from the beginning of their lives, not some arbitrary measure of time or weight.

The only way to avoid hypocrisy and sheer policy madness is to finally acknowledge what we all know: that each of our lives began at the moment of fertilization and that each of our lives are equally valuable from that moment until our last moment.

Source: United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Family SGLI Procedural Guide Version 2.7, April 28, 2016, p 1.