Effective today, the U.S. Department of Defense is offering a new benefit: military personnel (and dependent family members) who choose to have an abortion will now receive three weeks of paid leave and reimbursement for travel expenses. militarytimes.com/news/your-mili…
What message does that send, not just about how DOD values human life, but about how it feels about DOD personnel who choose to have children? Sure, they’re offering a corresponding benefit to those seeking IVF to have a child, but that benefit will apply to far fewer people.
When the Pentagon pays for your travel and gives you three weeks of paid leave to have an abortion, could women serving in the military reasonably hear the message as “we really don’t want any of you to get pregnant, and if you do, we really, REALLY want you to have an abortion”?
Within the military, where there’s already so much emphasis on the physical condition of each service member, what message will this policy send to women who are or may become pregnant?
To some, the message might come across as loud and suffocatingly clear: “We frown on your decision to have a baby—so much so that we’ll shell out a lot of money and give you three weeks of free leave to get an abortion if you get pregnant.”
Orthodoxy, conformity, and fidelity to the cause are far more prized in the military than elsewhere, making this an unusually intense form of pressure.
This reminds me of why Susan B. Anthony and other early feminists warned that abortion could be used by unscrupulous men to leave women with all of the meaningful responsibilities associated with a sexual relationship. “If she wants a child, that’s her problem because I don’t.”
My concerns with this policy aren’t just about abortion itself; they’re about what signal this sends to military families—and especially military women—who choose to have children rather than prevent or abort them. That signal is not an encouraging one.
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