For Veterans Day, let's also remember women currently serving
Today, more than 400,000 women serve in the Armed Forces. They serve at every level and in every branch of the military, and they dedicate years of their lives--and sometimes their lives--to protecting the country we love.
Why then are US servicewomen treated as second-class citizens when it comes to access to certain health care services?
Under current law, our military health care program denies servicewomen coverage for abortion care when they become pregnant as a result of rape. That's why Congressional leaders for reproductive choice have introduced a measure in both the House and Senate known as the MARCH for Military Women Act (Military Access to Reproductive Care and Health). MARCH gives Congress an opportunity to right this wrong.
Maybe all you really need to know about MARCH is that civilian women with government health insurance--such as federal employees, Medicaid recipients, and even prisoners--already have better coverage for abortion than our soldiers. This surprising disparity is not only unjust--it might even strike ardent opponents of abortion rights as wrong.
By contrast, the bans on abortion coverage for other women with federal health insurance all include exceptions for rape survivors. Similarly, the abortion restrictions in last year's health-care overhaul also provide exceptions for survivors of rape and incest.
Congress hotly debated the details of those restrictions, but access to abortion care for sexual assault survivors was rarely even questioned. Most people would agree that women serving in the military deserve at least the same options as civilians, so why has Congress shown so little regard for servicewomen and military families?
These policies are particularly unjust and unfair given alarmingly high rates of sexual assault in the military. More than three thousand military sexual assaults were reported in 2010, and that is probably only a fraction of the true number. One study found that 75% of military women who have been raped never reported it to a ranking officer, while others show equally troubling statistics about the number of military women who experience multiple rapes or attempted rapes.
It’s time that Congress truly honors the commitment, service, and sacrifice of servicewomen by ensuring that they are treated fairly in all policy matters. Our military women deserve--at a minimum--equal access to health services.
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About the author
Carol Rose is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. A lawyer and journalist, Carol has spent her career working for and writing about human rights and civil liberties, both in the United States and abroad. More »Recent blog posts
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