SALON

Monday, Jun 14, 2010 1:01 PM UTC

Abortion coming to the military?

A ban on the procedure could be lifted by an amendment hidden in the attempt to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

By

Topics: Abortion, Broadsheet, U.S. Military, Love and Sex,

Becoming pregnant as a member of a military in a war zone is serious business. But if a service-member decides her circumstances are not appropriate for bringing a child into the world, she’ll have a hard time exercising her right to a procedure that is legal and safe in the nation she represents. Abortion is banned from most military hospitals, even when the service-member pays for it herself. For the 100,000-plus women serving overseas — as well as family members who live with them on foreign bases — this makes abortion a practical impossibility. With no other option available, the military requires service-members to return home within two weeks of finding out about a pregnancy.

Women in the military, then, have less access to health care than their civilian counterparts. But this may change: in the same 852-page bill that may rescind the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, there is an amendment that would make abortion accessible for overseas military service-members, according to the New York Times. The change is small but significant: the provision would allow abortions in military facilities if they are paid upfront with private dollars. It includes an exception for doctors to refuse to perform the procedure if they are morally opposed. If enacted, the amendment would overturn a 1996 congressional ban on all abortion in military facilities, except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Government funds can only be used to save the mother; rape and incest victims must have private funds.

“Every woman honorably serving our country in the U.S. military and the spouses of military personnel stationed around the world deserve access to the full range of reproductive health care available to women in the United States,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a press statement. PPFA is one of eight organizations that quietly lobbied for the amendment. Why the hush of advocacy groups during their campaign? No doubt they wanted to do their work without navigating the public hysteria that is unleashed anytime the word “abortion” is referenced. And on this particular issue of abortion, the opposition message is well oiled. It contends that U.S. citizens subsidize military abortion, even if it is privately financed, because it occurs in a government facility, using the military service’s doctors and surgical equipment.

Facing votes in the full Senate and House, abortion is poised to continue its curious intersection with the U.S. military. Historically, the military has shifted between being retrograde and progressive when it comes to reproductive rights. As the war in Vietnam raged in 1970, the military actually legalized abortion — three years before Roe v. Wade. According to the Times, the policy was revoked by President Richard Nixon after one year — though an Air Force statute lingered, which required “even married female officers who became pregnant to be discharged unless they terminated the pregnancy, although they could not do so in military hospital.”

After abortion was legalized nationally in 1973, military hospitals offered the procedure as standard care until congressional restrictions in the late 1970s halted it. President Bill Clinton legalized privately financed abortions in the military in 1993 through an executive order, but it was short-lived, overwhelmed by the 1996 ban on nearly all abortions — a ban that itself may be facing numbered days.

Anna Clark's writing has appeared in The American Prospect, Utne Reader and Bitch, among other publications. She is the editor of the literary and social justice Web site, Isak. More Anna Clark.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 8 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations