Denied Abortion Access, Military Women Forced to Take Desperate Steps

If you think coat-hanger abortions are a pre-Roe thing that pro-choice liberals use as a scare tactic to sway undecided thinkers, you would be wrong.

More than 200,000 women currently serve in the U.S. military across the world. Unfortunately, both uniformed women and women living overseas with active duty spouses are severely limited in their reproductive choices. Due to a funding ban, women seeking abortions for any reason other than a threat to their health can't have it covered under TRICARE, the military health plan. Oh, sure, if you have the money to pay for it yourself, a pregnancy proven to be the result of rape or incest can be handled in a military center. But you would first have to report it. Military members or dependents can't even use their own money to procure abortions at military hospitals or centers outside of those circumstances.

In the U.S., or other countries where abortion is legal, women can go into what is termed "the economy" to use their own money to procure an abortion from a local provider. If they are serving or living in a country where abortion is illegal, however, to access one they would have to travel to another country where it is legal at their own expense. Someone living on a tight budget, worried about how they would be able to feed an extra mouth in the first place, probably isn't going to be able to afford this extra out-of-pocket cost.

Translate this into a situation where a woman is in a combat zone, or excuse me, not in combat (we can't have that, now can we?) but with a combat unit. Recently, Amy* a Marine stationed Fallujah, found herself facing an unplanned pregnancy. Looking back, she knows that she was raped. At the time, she knew reporting it as such would have lead to ostracism by her male peers for "crying rape." Lacking access to safe, legal abortion, she procured herbs on the internet, and using the sterilized cleaning rod of her rifle, tried to self abort.

The first attempt failed. In pain and agony, and after losing a lot of blood, she continued working, then made a second attempt. In a reflection of what a so-called "pro-life" world would look like, her attempt went dreadfully wrong, and she found herself in a military hospital anyway, charged under Article 92, given a suspended reduction in rank, and fined $500. Military doctors had no problem honoring Amy's request to be sent back to the States, because, you see, anyone who would try to self abort must really be mentally unstable, right?

Or, she was a desperate woman faced with no choices, and made a measured, rational decision.

Criminalizing or making abortion inaccessible doesn't stop women from seeking abortions. It only makes women more desperate to control desperate situations. It is unacceptable that women in uniform and the wives and daughters of service members are prevented by their own insurance and military regulations from accessing a safe and legal procedure that they could need or want for a countless number of reasons that are their own. Especially when their job or family life places them in countries that prevent them from using their own money to access an abortion, if they even have that money to spare. Apparently, their own Constitution can't protect them.

Who can?

*Not her real name.

The ACLU is interested in hearing from servicewomen, military defendants, and their health care providers about difficulties accessing abortion due to military policies. If you have any information, or would like to share your story with us, please contact us at rfp@aclu.org or 212-549-2633, or write to us at Reproductive Freedom Project, 125 Broad St, 18th Fl., New York, NY, 10004. Any information you provide will be treated as confidential.

You may also contact me at brandann@change.org. Please. You are not alone.

Photo courtesy of peretzpup's Flickr photostream.