America’s Armed Forces Are Weaker Without Roe

The Supreme Court has dealt a blow to military readiness by ruling in favor of abortion rights. America will be less safe as a result.

Before today's ruling, abortion services for active duty troops and their families were limited, only if the pregnancy was a result of sexual assault or if the base had services available. A lot of people don't. Service members and their families who need abortion care for other reasons had to pay for it off base.

Tens of thousands of military troops and their families are now located in states where abortion is not allowed. Members of the military and their families no longer have local off- base options. Service members who need abortion care will have to travel to multiple states on their own to get to a state where abortion is legal.

This costs the military a lot, not only to individual service members, but to the entire military. Many more service members will have to take longer leaves from their jobs to get health care. Emergency surgical abortion services on military installations may not be available in time to save a person's life.

Service members' privacy is also at risk. Those who wish to end a pregnant woman's life will have to tell their superiors in order to get leave.

If a service member in a state where abortion is now illegal needs an abortion for any reason other than sexual assault, they will have to request leave in order to travel out of state to get care. Their fate will be determined by their immediate superiors who may have differing opinions on the issue of abortion. A member of the United States military may be forced to have a baby because their commanding officer won't approve their leave request.

The culture around reporting sexual assault is an ongoing crisis in the military. The Department of Defense has tried to make it harder for service members to report assaults. When I was in the Marines, I was tasked with helping service members who experienced sexual assault access services if they wanted to do so.

When I was in the military, abortion was the law of the land, and many service members chose not to report assaults because they were afraid of reprisals. 38 percent of servicewomen who reported their assaults experienced professional retaliation, according to a survey by the Department of Defense. Service members who can access abortion on base will be less likely to report an assault due to the fact that it is now criminalized in many states.