Restricting abortions is a national security risk
The United States military is struggling to recruit and retain qualified servicemembers. Banning abortions will only make matters worse.
I’m thrilled to be joined by Navy Lieutenant Julie “Jinx” Roland. LT Roland is a Naval Aviator who has deployed to the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf flying helicopters. She is also a 3L at the University of San Diego School of Law and the director of the San Diego Chapter of the Truman National Security Project. This article reflects LT Roland’s personal views and does not represent the views of the United States Navy.
The United States military has a recruiting problem.
Staffing shortages are not limited to the military, of course. Other public sector jobs—from teachers to police—are struggling to hire too.
Within our armed forces, however, this is a more persistent problem. In fact, military enlistments have been in decline for 40 years.1 It doesn’t help that, as Army Chief of Staff James McConville puts it, “only 23% of Americans are qualified to serve.” But when the numbers are already against us, we should recognize the need to recruit from every corner of American society, and to retain who we’ve got.
The solution? Women.2
The problem? Women don’t want to join and they don’t want to stay.
For women already in the military, the separation rate is 28% higher than men, largely attributed to sexual assault, family planning, and childcare. In the wake of Dobbs, taking away abortion access compounds these issues while creating new ones.
When we talk about abortion access—on the ballot in Missouri and other states—it’s usually framed as an issue of healthcare or an issue of equality. We believe that too. But here is what’s Not Quite Right… When the issue of abortion stands to drive away qualified servicemembers, it becomes an issue of readiness.
Fewer women in a military that’s stretched too thin means a force less equipped to keep Americans safe. And that makes restricting abortion access a threat to our national security.
Issues facing women in the military
Our military has always, and likely will always, skew male. This isn’t unique to America; outside of countries with compulsory military service,3 nowhere in the world are women coming even close to comprising a majority of servicemembers.
But in our view, parity isn’t the inherent goal. Readiness is.
Understanding why women are leaving—and aren’t joining—the military is a critical part of addressing readiness. As long as there are qualified women who could be serving yet are choosing not to, we will remain undermanned.
Lawmakers know it. The military knows it too. In 2018, the Navy’s chief of personnel, Vice Admiral Robert Burke, said of women: “That’s where the talent is… We’re very aggressively going after them.” Yet while the number of women in our armed forces has substantially increased since the ’70s, it hasn’t actually changed much since 2000. In fact, in the Air Force, a higher percentage of enlistees were female in 1995 than are today.
What’s going on?
The integration of women into the military has been slow going.
Though women have been able to serve since the Truman Administration,4 there were roles closed off to women until 2015. Today, only 16% of enlisted servicemembers and 18% of officers are women. Even if those percentages seem promising, they don’t tell the whole story: a poor retention rate means that even with more women joining at the lower ranks, they are lacking representative leadership at the top.5
It was not until 2022 that a woman led a branch of our military, when Admiral Linda Fagan took over command of the Coast Guard. When there are so few senior female leaders, there will be understandable—but avoidable—blind spots regarding the issues facing women.
Therefore, it is hardly a surprise that issues inherently tied to gender, like sexual assault, family planning, and childcare, are three of the most common reasons women leave the military.
The blind spots
Nearly one in four female servicemembers report having been sexually assaulted, making women in the military more likely to be raped by a fellow servicemember than killed in action.6 Decades of efforts to “halt rape and other sex crimes in the ranks” have not accomplished the mission.
In the face of a recruiting drought, when polled, 28% of young people pointed to sexual assault as a reason they wouldn’t want to enlist. Sexual assault statistics understandably affect female retention while dissuading potential recruits (of both genders).
The military is also a challenging and at times inhospitable place for mothers and pregnant servicemembers. Take this account from Marine Corps veteran Joanna Sweatt:
I had my first child at 18. At the time, I was a dependent of my father, who was fully retired from the Air Force. Even as a teen mom, I was treated with nothing but respect throughout the process.
Baby No. 2 came during my second year in the Marine Corps at the age of 20, and the experience couldn’t have been more different. Even though I was married, my choice to remain pregnant after birth control failed was disrespected by my command and peers, who ridiculed me and made me feel inadequate as a Marine. In the naval hospital, my birthing experience was procedural and traumatic. As an active member of the Marine Corps, I was respected less and treated worse than when I was 18.
Many women also leave the military because of childcare constraints. The few military policies designed to help new parents are difficult to navigate and inconsistently implemented, there is insufficient childcare relative to demand, and there are thousands of military brats on waitlists for childcare. To quote Major Erin Williams from that article, “Childcare is the only thing that has made me consider leaving military service.”7
Accessing affordable childcare—the burdens of which fall disproportionately on women, in the military and out—is an obstacle to recruiting women too. What mother wants to join an organization she already knows can’t offer the affordable childcare she needs?
In 2020, a Government Accountability Office report noted that military leadership was neither understanding nor supportive of family needs. In the face of such glaring issues, the findings of the report are damning.
When military leadership appears so myopic in addressing the issues that have a greater impact on female servicemembers, it is frankly surprising that even 8% of women and girls ages 16-21 would still consider joining the military.8
Now, the DOD faces a new problem threatening women’s health and safety, and by extension, military readiness: limited access to reproductive healthcare.
Why abortion access matters to servicewomen
The rights afforded to women by Roe were particularly critical for women in our armed forces, who have unplanned pregnancies at a rate nearly double that of the general population. Now, against an already bleak backdrop of the state of female recruitment and retention in the military, enter Dobbs, which eliminates a half-century-long right to reproductive healthcare.
For young women, abortion access is one of the most important issues in this election. But for young women in the military, the results of these elections may be, in many ways, even more dire. Following the Dobbs decision, the health and careers of female servicemembers have been put at greater risk almost overnight, as 40% of female servicemembers now no longer have access to abortions simply because they’re stationed at one of the 100 military installations in states that ban them.
For now, there’s nothing stopping more women from getting stationed in those states in the future. Disappointingly, Pentagon officials have conceded that “there is not much they can do for women.”
The military has historically let down rape victims, pregnant mothers, and families. Now, the military is signaling it will do next to nothing as abortion access is restricted.
Ostensibly, the military has become a workplace where women now:
Are more likely to be raped than their civilian counterparts.
Are able to be relocated against their will to a state with restricted abortion access.
Are offered insufficient childcare and family planning resources.
Are led by predominantly and disproportionately male leadership that is neither understanding nor supportive.
This reveals a dystopian reality which would understandably make any woman in the military think about getting out, and any woman considering getting in think twice.
How Congress hamstrings our military
The DOD’s efforts to defend against the damage of Dobbs have been feeble. The best current strategy involves shipping women to other states to receive essential healthcare now unavailable locally. Though Defense Secretary Austin asked commanders not to be discriminatory or retaliatory about reproductive healthcare decisions, women reasonably fear professional consequences, as “some leaders [view] the necessary time off…as an unwanted distraction.”
Traveling under the circumstances will no doubt take a personal toll too. For junior enlisted service members, a legal abortion could cost half a month’s pay. Overall, this strategy poses more problems than it solves.
The DOD is not oblivious to the risks Dobbs presents to military readiness, but Congress has made it impossible to mitigate. Current federal law prevents the military from publicly funding abortion services and/or performing abortions even if the patient pays out-of-pocket, with limited exceptions. Elective abortion is one of the safest medical procedures available, about 14 times safer than childbirth. But while 860,000 abortions were performed nationally in 2017 alone, only 91 have been performed in U.S. military hospitals since 2017.
There are gaps in women’s healthcare access that the military should reasonably be able—but is not allowed—to close.
Moving forward, Congress could close bases in states that restrict abortion access and only build bases in states where reproductive healthcare is codified. But there’s also a simpler, less dramatic, and more sensible alternative: end the Hyde Amendment. With the Hyde Amendment gone, military healthcare providers could actually provide necessary healthcare at any base in the country.
Understandably, the military is reluctant to weigh in on such a hot-button issue, especially around elections. Abortion access may be perceived as too politicized for the “nonpartisan” military, but this is a disservice to its members and to the country.
Fighting for abortion access is not just morally right. It’s tactically strategic
If manpower is a priority, then the military needs women. Restricting abortion access stands in the way.
The increasing number of statewide bans on abortions, combined with problems already plaguing female service members (and prospective ones), generates an “incentive for women not to serve.”
When it comes to the health and safety of its minority members, the military has been historically and often horrifically slow to take action. But if the military can’t provide basic protections for the health and safety of its female members, readiness concerns will become a readiness crisis.
Restricting abortion access threatens women, but it also threatens the safety of our entire country.
Unfortunately, due to the politicization of the issue, the Department of Defense may not come to women’s defense. And Congressional action may take too long. Which means the American public is on the front lines for this one.
So, when you vote to restore abortion access in Missouri (or elsewhere), remember:
You aren’t just voting for Missourians. You’re voting for the airmen based at Whiteman Air Force Base and the soldiers stationed at Fort Leonard Wood. You’re voting for all the women who serve in our armed forces, and all the women who may want to in the future. You’re voting for a stronger, healthier, and safer United States Armed Forces.
And you’re voting for a stronger, healthier, and safer United States.
Hi, it’s just Ben again. Please consider supporting Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, which is leading the effort to restore abortion access in Missouri.
Feel free to share this post with someone who might learn something from it, especially if they live in states where abortion access is on the ballot. (If you’re reading this email because someone sent it to you, please consider subscribing.)
While the Marine Corps and the Space Force are meeting their recruiting goals, the Air Force, Army, and Navy—the three largest branches—are consistently falling short.
Despite what Tucker Carlson might tell you.
Israel requires most women to serve, and 34% of those serving in the IDF are women. But numbers that high are very much the exception.
Of course, women played a critical role in conflicts before then, particularly during WWII. Even then, they enlisted in separate branches of the military—the Women's Army Corps, for example. And many of their contributions came on the home front because they were not serving abroad.
For instance, in 2016, female Navy Captains fell short of proportionally representing their female junior Sailors by 11%. Despite efforts to correct the discrepancy, the number of female Navy Captains had increased only one percent in ten years. At that rate of change, it would take 110 years for upper leadership to be representative, which makes convincing women that they can progress a tough sell. Plus, until women comprise their fair share of the upper ranks, decisions will be made without proportional female perspectives.
As Julie has written about, the issue of rape is particularly acute in the Marine Corps: “female Marines are almost three times as likely to be victims than their Air Force counterparts.”
Erin Williams wrote a great LinkedIn post on this topic.
While the number of women who want to join the military has been flat since the beginning of the century, it has declined precipitously for men—especially over the last six years or so.
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