1. Women represent nearly 18% of the Active Duty force and have been critical to the military meeting accession goals recently. 

2. Under 10 USC 1093, TRICARE could only cover – and military treatment facilities could only provide – abortions in the limited circumstances of pregnancies that endangered the life of the woman or those arising from rape or incest. 

3. Active Duty service members must serve where assigned. Hundreds of thousands of troops are stationed in states where the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court ruling has allowed varying degrees of restrictions to be placed on abortion access, limiting their access to abortions outside those conditions. 

4. Estimates from 2022 found that 40% of Active Duty service women in the continental U.S., making up 18% of the stateside total Active Duty force, had either no or severely restricted access to abortion access where they were stationed; 95% of them are under age 45. 

​

• The cost to travel out of state to access a safe, legal abortion could be more than half of the monthly pre-tax salary for junior enlisted personnel. 

5. These issues also apply to the spouses and covered dependents of Active Duty service men, as well as DoD-employed civilian women and dependents. 

6. Guaranteed access to assisted reproductive technology (ART) was also thrown into disarray in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision; DoD only covers ART in limited situations. 

7. To ensure Active Duty service women and dependents would be able to access non-covered reproductive health care regardless of where they were stationed, in 2022, DoD made several policy changes, including authorizing: 

​

• Service members up to 20 weeks to notify commanders of pregnancy status

• Administrative leave for non-covered reproductive healthcare

• Travel and transportation allowances for travel to access that care
 

8. On January 29, 2025, DoD issued a memorandum rescinding coverage of travel for non-covered reproductive health care services. On February 4, 2025, DoD issued a second memo reestablishing travel for non-covered ART. Restricted access to abortion care could lead to wide-ranging costs to DoD, including but not limited to increased attrition, decreased accessions, more women on restricted duty and in non-deployable status, higher health care costs, higher childcare costs, and higher education costs. Ultimately, we can expect “a decrease in force readiness and our national security.” 

 

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT info@wiscimil.org