Rebecca Kheel
Thu, May 12, 2022
The Army is weighing new policies in response to the Supreme Court's expected decision to reverse Roe v. Wade and eliminate protections on abortion rights across the country, the service's senior enlisted leader told Congress on Thursday.
Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston's testimony to the House came the same day that eight Senate Democrats separately pressed the Pentagon to ensure female troops will continue to be able to access abortion services if the high court acts on Roe.
News outlet Politico on May 2 published a draft ruling that the Supreme Court's five-judge conservative majority had been working on earlier this year, setting the stage for an expected decision later this summer to overturn the precedent-setting case from 1973 that has kept abortion rights the law of the land for decades.
"The answer is yes, we are drafting policies to ensure we take care of our soldiers in an appropriate way," Grinston told a House Appropriations Committee subpanel. "There are drafts if it were to be overturned, but that would be a decision for the secretary of the Army to decide the policy."
Grinston did not provide any more details about what the draft policy could entail, but pledged to keep lawmakers apprised of the drafting process.
"We do not want to disadvantage anyone in our force -- men, women -- or alienate anyone that is eligible to serve in the military," Grinston added when asked how overturning Roe could affect recruitment of women. "We'll continue to recruit as best as we can with the policies that we have."
Separate from the hearing, eight Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., on Thursday penned a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urging him to ensure female troops "have the ability to continue accessing safe reproductive health care no matter where in the nation their military service sends them." The letter comes a day after Senate Democrats failed to advance a bill to codify Roe after all Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., voted against it.
Up to 26 states could ban abortion after Roe is overturned, including 13 that have so-called trigger laws to immediately end abortion after a Supreme Court ruling, according to the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute.
Military doctors are already barred from performing abortions under most circumstances because of a law that bans federal funding from being used, with exceptions for when the mother's life is at risk. That means servicewomen must go off base to get abortions.
Experts and advocates have been warning that overturning Roe could be particularly hard on female troops, who cannot choose where they are stationed, because those based in states that ban abortion will have to ask for leave from their commanders to travel out of state.
"Women in the military already have a higher rate of unintended pregnancies than civilian women," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said at Thursday's hearing. "For those female soldiers in states with restrictive abortion laws, their options for safe abortions may be completely erased if Roe v. Wade is overturned."
Despite Grinston's comments Thursday, officials at the Defense Department level have sidestepped questions about post-Roe policies, saying the ruling isn't final yet.
"The health and well-being of our men and women are paramount concerns of department leadership, and we certainly want to make sure that whoever they are and wherever they are that they know that we're serious about that pledge," Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters the day after the draft opinion leaked, while adding he's "just not going to entertain" questions specifically about a ruling that's not official yet.
But in their letter Thursday, the eight Senate Democrats argued that "we cannot wait to act" until after the court's final decision.
The senators argued that, "at a minimum," the Defense Department should make it easier for service members to take leave if they need to travel out of state for reproductive health care.
They said a decision by the court to reverse Roe would strip hundreds of thousands of troops, dependents and DoD civilians of access to reproductive health care and create a "scenario where service members' reproductive and healthcare rights would become dependent on their duty station."
"A soldier at Fort Drum would retain their personal autonomy while a soldier at Fort Hood would not," they wrote. "This outcome would violate the trust servicemembers place in the Armed Forces when they swear an oath to defend the Constitution."
-- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at Rebecca.Kheel@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel.
US Military Risks a Decline in Female Troops Under Roe Rollback
U.S. troops could see their access to abortion severely curtailed if the Supreme Court overturns its landmark ruling on reproductive rights, potentially hurting military recruitment and the retention of women.
As employees of the federal government, doctors on military bases are already banned from performing abortions so female troops — and the female spouses of troops — must seek out the procedure on their own. That would become much more difficult if the Supreme Court overturns the precedent set in its Roe v. Wade ruling almost five decades ago, as a leaked draft ruling indicates it’s likely to do.
At least 26 states probably would place restrictions on abortion laws, including Texas, Florida and other southern states that have many of the nation’s military bases, according to Sean Timmons, a managing partner at Tulley Rinckey who specializes in military law.
The potential impact on recruitment and retention would come as the military is already struggling to find qualified troops. Women make up almost 20% of the 1.3 million-member active-duty force.
“It places an undue burden on women serving in the military because they are going to have to go through extraordinary lengths to seek fair access to reproductive health care, which they wouldn’t be facing if they hadn’t joined the military, for example, and then been stationed in a state that has very restrictive access,” said Rachel VanLandingham, an associate professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in national security law.
But Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, disputed the idea that new limits on abortions could affect women’s willingness to serve.
“I have seen nothing from the Department of Defense that has led me to believe that access to abortion is a factor in recruiting and retention one way or another,” Inhofe said in a statement.
Defense Department spokesman John Kirby declined to directly address the abortion issue when questioned this week. But he said “the health and well-being of our men and women are paramount concerns of department leadership,” and “we are serious about making sure they have the information, the tools that they need to make the most informed decisions for their own personal health and well-being.”
“Of course we cannot be an effective military without the brave women who serve inside the military, and who serve in the civilian ranks,” he told reporters.
Military medical facilities aren’t allowed to perform abortions — and the cost of the procedure in private facilities isn’t covered by the military’s Tricare health insurance — because of the Hyde Amendment of 1976, which prohibits the use of federal dollars for abortions unless the life of the mother is at risk.
Women can ask to be discharged from the military if they are pregnant, according to Timmons.
To get an abortion out of state, women in the military would have to ask for approved leave from their commanders, and probably have to disclose the reason. “It could well lead to additional hostile work environment, harassment, obnoxious behavior from colleagues if they know why the absence is necessitated,” Timmons said.
Asking for leave also can put women at a disadvantage on performance evaluations — especially if they are based overseas in places where abortion is banned — because they’d be asking for special treatment to take the leave, said VanLandingham, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel.
“It adds to the burden the women already shoulder by being in the minority in the military within a still very much male culture,” she said.
The vast majority — 95% — of all women serving in the military are of reproductive age, according to Defense Department estimates. The Pentagon provides health care to more than 1.5 million women of reproductive age, including servicewomen on active duty, in the guard and reserves, as well their dependents, according a statement by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who have championed women’s health care in the military.
Studies have also shown that women in the military have a 50% higher rate of unplanned pregnancy than the general population, according to the lawmakers.
Despite incremental increases in the population of military women over the past 15 years, female service members are 28% more likely to separate from service than their male active-duty counterparts, according to a Government Accountability Office report in 2020. Family planning, sexual assault, and dependent care were some of the issues listed as influencing women’s decisions to leave the military, according to the GAO.
Because Congress isn’t likely to scuttle the Hyde Amendment any time soon, VanLandingham, the law professor, urged the Pentagon and the Biden administration to change internal policies and attitudes to let troops know “that we will take care of you, we will help seek access to reproductive health care, and to overcome these additional burdens.”
A group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday urging him to proactively implement measures protecting abortion rights for service members in the event that the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
In the letter, senators led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) brought up a recently leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in which conservative justices voted to overturn the 1973 landmark decision that guaranteed a person’s right to an abortion at the federal level.
The senators warned that hundreds of thousands of troops, dependents and Defense Department civilians stationed in states with abortion bans would lose access to reproductive health care and potentially face criminal prosecution if the Supreme Court’s final opinion is similar to the leaked draft.
“As the leader of our military services, it falls upon you to preserve the health and welfare of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians,” the senators wrote. “With our country facing the likely rollback of personal rights, what are you and your staff doing in preparation to protect the health and welfare of those under your command? What steps will you take to assist service members in need of an abortion?”
The senators advised Austin to “at a minimum” consider policy changes that would allow service members to obtain “special liberty or permissive temporary additional duty permissions in order to travel out of state for reproductive health care and abortions” if they are stationed in a jurisdiction that restricts those rights.
“A soldier at Fort Drum would retain their personal autonomy while a soldier at Fort Hood would not. A service member raped by their supervisor in Mississippi, Kentucky, or Oklahoma would not be permitted to obtain an abortion in those states,” the senators wrote. “In places like Missouri, legislators have sought to ban abortions even for ectopic pregnancies, leaving a service member or their dependent facing a choice of death or criminal activity.”
“This outcome would violate the trust service members place in the Armed Forces when they swear an oath to defend the Constitution,” they continued.
In addition to Gillibrand, the letter was signed by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Angus King (I-Maine). Gillibrand has a years-long history of pushing the Defense Department to better protect service members in the event of sexual assault.
A spokesperson for the Defense Department did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for comment on the letter.
The letter came a day after Republicans again blocked the Senate from advancing the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have codified Roe v. Wade.
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