Protecting Abortion Care Is A Matter Of National Security

The following post is by Louis Caldera, Ray Mabus, and Deborah James in The Washington Post. 

Louis Caldera is a former Army secretary and former director of the White House Military Office. Ray Mabus is a former Navy secretary. Deborah James is a former Air Force secretary and former assistant defense secretary for reserve affairs.

The tragic attack on our troops at Tower 22 in Jordan is a stark reminder of how those in uniform might give their lives at any moment in service to our country. Two of the three soldiers killed were women. They lost their lives for a country that is moving to restrict the rights of all women — including those in uniform.

While it might not seem to be a military issue, the Supreme Court will soon decide a case that will affect the armed forces and hundreds of thousands of women who serve in uniform — as well as those civilians we need to recruit. The question before the court is whether to severely limit access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortions up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. Medication abortions make up over half of the cases in the United States.

Threatening vital reproductive health care will only make it harder to recruit and retain women across the military and meet the security challenges of a dangerous world. That is precisely why we, as former secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force, felt compelled to join with retired general officers in filing a landmark amicus brief to the Supreme Court with the nonpartisan Vet Voice Foundation.

Our filing marked the first time that former defense professionals and retired military officers have weighed in on a Supreme Court abortion case on national security grounds.

Although there are a number of barriers to receiving reproductive care, service members for now can still obtain safe and effective medication abortions without visiting a doctor’s office. Mifepristone offers a less expensive, more private and convenient method of abortion care, including for those women stationed in remote locations and to whom the military cannot provide care directly.

This case could not come at a worse time. We are deeply concerned about our country’s defense readiness. The Army, Navy and Air Force all failed to meet recruiting goals last fiscal year. Men in particular have lost interest in joining the military, and the number of people who meet its rigorous enlistment standards has gone down.

Women are critical to our military. But for many, the demands and challenges can be career-ending. Female service members are 28 percent more likely to leave military service, driven in part by difficulties with family planning and child care. Reducing that attrition rate — combined with bringing in new female recruits — is essential to maintaining America’s military readiness and protecting our national security.

Mifepristone has provided military women and veterans safe and effective care they need, regardless of where they are stationed or deployed. When women are forced to take extended leave and travel out of state to access health care, their units are deprived of full staffing, and the women’s morale and careers suffer. Moreover, delays in accessing care increase the health risk associated with abortion.

Military service requires many sacrifices, including being stationed in locations where access to reproductive care is already hard to find. Undermining our female service members’ physical and mental well-being could have disastrous consequences.

Those who take an oath and wear the uniform will always do their duty and put their lives on the line for us. But those who defend America should not — while on the front lines or training to defeat our nation’s enemies — also have to fight for reproductive care and bodily autonomy. That is more than a matter of principle. It’s a matter of national security.