![]() While serving in Germany, Theard performed surgical abortions on women who were flown into the hospital from around the globe, he said. He served under a program known as the Berry Plan, which allowed him to finish his medical school and residency training before fulfilling his military obligation. He arrived in Germany in 1976, commissioned directly to major, and spent three years with the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt. “What I would like to do is have all the clinics follow my lead.”ĭrafted just after the end of the Vietnam War, Theard spent seven years as an Army surgeon. “The Army was good to me, and I’m trying to be good to them,” Theard said. Service women in other states likely have a closer option, he said. ![]() He said he is focusing his offer for free services to enlisted women traveling from surrounding states where abortion is banned or is expected to be soon, including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arizona. “ a fairly hefty figure,” Theard said of the cost. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order June 27 to protect abortion access in the state, the physician typically charges $700 to see women and provide medication for them to take once they leave the clinic that will terminate their pregnancy. They had no family in Panama to help.”Īt Theard’s clinic in New Mexico, where Gov. The women who I dealt with at least were first-time mothers. “That's where I first began to notice that the officers can afford this, but the junior enlisted women just have the baby,” Manning said. to have an abortion, but the officers could. When Manning was a commander in Panama in the early 1980s, she said she had enlisted women working for her who found themselves pregnant and couldn’t afford to fly back to the U.S. I mean, the military basically supplies just about you want for free,” Manning said. We need to do a better job of educating them. ![]() ![]() Maybe they're embarrassed about asking about it. “Contraception may be new to them, or they don't know who to ask to find out what's available. Training events, rotational shift work and just a lack of knowledge on what’s available to them can also have an effect, she said. However, data on how many women in the military seek abortions is “scarce” because they must do it on their own, Hunter wrote.ĭeployments and overseas assignments contribute to service women’s increased chance of unintended pregnancy because it can often cause disruptions in prescribed contraceptives, said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain and director of government relations for the advocacy group Service Women’s Action Network. There are about 13,860 unintended pregnancies in the military each year, according to the group’s research. Women in the service are nearly twice as likely as civilian women to have an unintended pregnancy, according to research from Ibis Reproductive Health, a global nonprofit organization with a mission to improve women's reproductive autonomy, choices and health worldwide. Wade could “have an outsized effect on women in the military.” Hunter recently wrote for Lawfare, a blog published in cooperation with the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., that overturning Roe v. “How are commanders going to work to prevent backlash against women who seek abortions and who require aftercare?” “There's already a very negative stigma around women's health care in the military broadly,” said Kyleanne Hunter, a Marine Corps veteran and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp. However, the ruling could mean women in the military seeking an abortion while stationed in one of the 26 states that either have banned or are expected to ban abortions will need to take medical leave and travel. Federal law only allows abortions at military facilities in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s life is at risk. Wade has allowed states to ban abortions, though it hasn’t changed the Defense Department’s policy on the procedure. The Supreme Court ruling in June to overturn Roe v.
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