Restrictive military abortion policies harm female soldiers’ health, emotional well-being, career prospects, and finances, concludes a study published last week in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
Anti-abortion policies are just one more way the government creates barriers to success and well-being among female servicemembers. Reports of sexual assault in the military have reached record highs. At least 25% of female soldiers report being sexually assaulted, and 80% report being sexually harassed.
Current Military Abortion Policy
The Hyde Amendment notoriously prohibits the federal government from funding abortion care in almost all cases. This rule, and others like it, can have unanticipated consequences for the lives of female soldiers.
Tricare, the military’s health care plan, will not fund abortion unless a woman has been raped or her life is in danger. Military health facilities are prohibited from providing abortion outside of these circumstances.
Abortion opponents claim that female soldiers should pay for their abortions themselves, and that they can easily seek abortions at outside clinics. For women deployed abroad, that may prove impossible—and pregnancy during a deployment can be dangerous. For women living on military bases, it may be difficult to get leave to receive an abortion, and such leave may be at the discretion of a male officer.
How Military Anti-Abortion Rules Affect Women
To explore how restrictive abortion policies affect women, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with active duty soldiers who had abortions in 2015 or 2016.
Participants expressed frustration and surprise with the military’s abortion policy. They also worried about the stigma of seeking an abortion, and felt that doing so might harm their careers. Many interviewees said that the controlling hierarchy of military life compromised their privacy. This made it more difficult to seek an abortion, and more likely that a woman would suffer career consequences for doing so.
The women also felt that they received inadequate counseling about their options when they sought care at a military health facility. This, they felt, compromised their mental and physical health. Most felt that the military should be required to cover abortion care.
Punishing Female Soldiers With Pregnancy
The study’s authors argue that, at minimum, the military must do more to educate women about its abortion policy. This could spare women the logistical and financial challenges of seeking an abortion at the last minute.
Previous research has found much higher rates of unintended pregnancy among military women than in the general population. These soldiers bear a significant career and financial burden when they seek abortions. Their male partners, who are also often soldiers, may bear no burden at all. This poses an unfair burden that punishes women for getting pregnant, and treats pregnancy as only a woman’s problem.
Research published earlier this year found that fewer abortion restrictions could save thousands of lives each year.