The military must do better for women

Christians have a lot of reasons to object to the Pentagon’s new abortion travel policy. Among them is the brazen dishonesty of the proposal. It would be legal, but only technically so.

The Hyde Amendment prohibits use of federal funding for abortion in Medicaid. It’s a good law, and an important one. It was a bipartisan achievement and a recognition that it would be wrong to make pro-life Americans pay for abortions with their taxes. The fact that similar amendments extended this policy to other federal agencies and programs—including Defense—shows broad, historic opposition to funding abortion with taxpayer dollars.

But it’s a law the Pentagon now seeks to flout by using federal funding to provide military women with travel funding and 21 days’ leave if they choose to seek an abortion or fertility treatment.

Supporters of the policy routinely defend it on grounds that support the grotesque inference that infant death is a prerequisite for successful military service. According to the policy, abortions, not fertility treatments, produce the desired “military readiness” and pregnancy compromises military readiness.

It’s a straightforward abuse of the law to utilize federal funding in this way. The policy makes a distinction without a difference. What good is it to vow never to use taxpayer funds for direct abortion if taxpayer funding delivers the mom to the clinic where the abortion will be performed? While debate persists about the wisdom of Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s refusal to confirm military officials until the Pentagon’s abortion policy is reversed, it’s important to recognize what’s at stake in his stance—the defense of human life. It is beyond bizarre to have a policy that allows for taking innocent life within a military designed to protect life within American borders.

And a perverse policy bears evil fruit: It applies pro-abortion pressure to vulnerable women in the military. Servicewomen need and deserve our support and protection during crisis pregnancies every bit as much as civilian women do.

The rates of unintended pregnancy among servicewomen are higher than for civilian women, and the circumstances surrounding their pregnancy can be complex. But a mother is a mother, regardless of military status.

She needs hope, support, resources, medical insight, and guidance. And in civilian populations, we know that three out of four abortion-minded women would prefer to parent if their circumstances were different.

We have a chance to uplift vulnerable women in a moment of crisis—but if the system in our Department of Defense aggressively incentivizes abortion, those chances become fewer and further between.

Women like Cherri, who serves in the National Guard, would face the hardest decision of their lives while also staring down the risk of losing their livelihood. Cherri knew she didn’t want to be pregnant. She didn’t even want to hear the heartbeat or see an ultrasound. Pregnancy would mean she would be working and raising three children all by herself.

So she looked for an abortion clinic—but then looked past them, and chose a pregnancy resource center partnered with Human Coalition instead. When Cherri was close to giving up, the staff helped her through. They called her daily to make sure she had what she needed. They believed in her. She believed in them.

She knew she wasn’t alone, and that gave her the strength she needed to choose life. She didn’t need a paid trip to an abortion clinic. She needed support.

Her story is far from the only one like it. For her sake—and for the sake of every woman like her—it’s time to stop pretending that incentivizing abortion does anything other than harm and manipulate women in their moments of greatest need.