Women Soldiers Forced to Resort to Back-Alley Abortions: Why Are Their Reproductive Rights Denied?

[StarfarerBill]

By Kathryn Joyce, Religion Dispatches

"You hear these legends of coat-hanger abortions," a 26-year-old former Marine sergeant told me recently, "but there are no coat hangers in Iraq. I looked." Amy (who prefers not to use her real name) was stationed in Fallujah as a military journalist two years ago when she discovered she was pregnant. As a female Marine, a distinct minority in the branch, Amy was fearful of going to her chain of command to explain her situation.

For military women, who lack all rights to medical privacy, facing an unplanned pregnancy is a daunting obstacle. Thanks to anti-abortion forces in Congress, military hospitals are banned from providing abortion services, except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest (and for the latter two, only if the patient pays for the service herself). Amy says her options were "like being given a choice between swimming in a pond full of crocodiles or piranhas."

"I have long been aware of the stigma surrounding this circumstance and knew my career would likely be over, though I have received exceptional performance reviews in the past," Amy explains. Although Fallujah has a surgical unit, and abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures, Amy knew that if her pregnancy were discovered, she would be sent back to her home base at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune, where she would then have to seek a private abortion off-base, or she could request leave in Iraq and try her luck at a local hospital. She also knew she could face reprimands from her commanding officers for having had sex in Iraq (part of a broader prohibition on sex in war zones), and that she might not be promoted as a result: a potentially career-ending situation in the Marines, where failure to obtain regular promotions results in being discharged. Moreover, as a woman in the military, accustomed to proving herself to her male peers over her six-year career, Amy was wary of appearing a "weak female."

More:
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/144696/women_soldiers_forced_to_resort_to_back-alley_abortions%3A_why_are_their_reproductive_rights_denied

[newlib]

1. to ensure a plentiful supply of cannon fodder for tomorrow's wars? nt

[niyad]

4. welcome to DU-- you are correct

[Echo In Light]

16. May be. Although a 'lesson' of Vietnam was the brass doesn't want a people's army

... b/c it was found that average people don't hold up well to the KILLKILLKILL needs of such operations. Hence the large % of contracting mercenary outfits like Blackwater.

[hlthe2b]

2. Let's see.. military does nothing about rampant rape, provides

no legal abortions so the woman then puts her life at true risk, and if she survives, (at least in NOrthern Iraq command), gets court martialed for becoming pregnant.


Will the young women among us (who seemingly thing their reproductive rights are a "given," and that despite the failure to ratify ERA, foolishly believe that they are ensured equal rights), please WAKE THE HELL UP? And, yes, the young men, as well!

[niyad]

5. absolultely correct

[dgibby]

13. She will not be courts martialed if she was raped. n/t

[hlthe2b]

15. If they deign to believe her...

I'm amazed you downplay the problem.. really amazed... :shrug:

[dgibby]

17. I'm not downplaying anything.

I'm simply stating a fact.

[hlthe2b]

18. The facts are that sexual assault is pervasive for women in the military

Please educate yourself.. We owe it to women in the military to advocate for them.

Sexual assault in military 'jaw-dropping,' lawmaker says
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/31/military.sexabuse/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congresswoman said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military.
Ingrid Torres said she was attacked on a U.S. base in Korea: "I was raped while I slept."

Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach said she was raped by a fellow Marine. A Marine has been charged in her death.

A government report indicates that the numbers could be even higher.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, spoke before a House panel investigating the way the military handles reports of sexual assault.

She said she recently visited a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Los Angeles area, where women told her horror stories of being raped in the military.

"My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military," said Harman, who has long sought better protection of women in the military.

"Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and downward spirals many of their lives have taken since.

"We have an epidemic here," she said. "Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."

As of July 24, 100 women had died in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

In 2007, Harman said, only 181 out of 2,212 reports of military sexual assaults, or 8 percent, were referred to courts martial. By comparison, she said, 40 percent of those arrested in the civilian world on such charges are prosecuted.

Defense statistics show that military commanders took unspecified action, which can include anything from punishment to dismissal, in an additional 419 cases.

But when it came time for the military to defend itself, the panel was told that the Pentagon's top official on sexual abuse, Dr. Kaye Whitley, was ordered not to show up despite a subpoena.

"I don't know what you're trying to cover up here, but we're not going to allow it," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said to the Defense official who relayed the news of Whitley's no-show. "This is unacceptable."

Rep. John Tierney, the panel's chairman and a Democrat from Massachusetts, angrily responded, "these actions by the Defense Department are inexplicable."

"The Defense Department appears to be willfully and blatantly advising Dr. Whitley not to comply with a duly authorized congressional subpoena," Tierney said.

An Army official who did testify said the Army takes allegations of sexual abuse extremely seriously.

"Even one sexual assault violates the very essence of what it means to be a soldier, and it's a betrayal of the Army's core values," Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle said.

The committee also heard from Mary Lauterbach, the mother of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a 20-year-old pregnant Marine who was killed in December, allegedly by a fellow Marine.

Mary Lauterbach said her daughter filed a rape claim with the military against Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean seven months before he was accused of killing her. Video Watch dead Marine's mom demand change »

"I believe that Maria would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect the victims of sexual assault," she said.

In the months after her daughter filed the rape claim, she said, the military didn't seem to take her seriously, and the onus was on "Maria to connect the dots."

"The victim should not have the burden to generate evidence for the command," Lauterbach told the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. "Maria is dead, but there will be many more victims in the future, I promise you. I'm here to ask you to do what you can to help change how the military treats victims of crime and to ensure the victims receive the support and protection they need and they deserve."

Another woman, Ingrid Torres, described being raped on a U.S. base in Korea when she worked with the American Red Cross.

"I was raped while I slept," she said.

The man who assaulted her, she said, was a flight director who was found guilty and dismissed from the Air Force.

Fighting back tears, Torres added, "he still comes after me in my dreams."

The Government Accountability Office released preliminary results from an investigation into sexual assaults in the military and the Coast Guard. The GAO found that the "occurrences of sexual assault may be exceeding the rates being reported."

"At the 14 installations where GAO administered its survey, 103 service members indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12 months. Of these, 52 service members indicated that they did not report the sexual assault," the GAO said.

The office found that the military and Coast Guard have established policies to address sexual assault but that the implementation of the programs is hampered by an array of factors, including that "most, but not all, commanders support the programs."

"Left unchecked, these challenges can discourage or prevent some service members from using the programs when needed," the GAO said.
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Tierney said, "what's at stake here goes to the very core of the values of the military and the nation itself.

"When our sons and daughters put their lives on the line to defend the rest of us, the last thing they should fear is being attacked by one of our own."



Sex Assaults Against Women in Military 'Epidemic'
GAO Report: Sexual Assaults and Rapes in Military Under-Reported by Half
By Z. BYRON WOLF
July 31, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5491514&page=1
Mary Lauterbach, the mother of murdered pregnant Marine Maria Lauterbach, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the military must change the way it deals with sexual assault to avoid more tragedies like her own.
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Nearly 60,000 female veterans reported being raped or assaulted since 2002.

"I believe Maria would be alive today if the Marine system had been different," her mother told a panel of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held a hearing Thursday on sexual assault and rape in the military.

There were no representatives from the Marines at the hearing, and the head of the Pentagon office tasked with responding to the problem of sexual assault in the military was ordered by her superiors not to testify despite a subpoena from the committee.

Lauterbach told lawmakers the chain of command at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina did not do enough to protect her daughter after she accused Cpl. Cesar Laurean of raping her. Military brass was slow to act, even after Maria's car was vandalized and she was punched in the face.

[dgibby]

19. I'm happy that you're so passionate about advocating for military women.

Having said that, there was nothing in my posts to indicate my position on this situation. I was merely stating a fact, nothing more or less.

Now let me introduce myself:

I am a female, retired Navy Commander with 22yrs active duty, who was the victim of an attempted rape while serving my country overseas, so I got my "education" the old fashioned way. I EARNED it.

[hlthe2b]

22. I appreciate your telling me and specifically for your service...

I also empathize with your painful experience. However, I repeat my contention that there is not uniformity in the military with respect to rape prosecution and protection of women. And, yes, I am in a position to know as well. If rape is not uniformly prosecuted and dealt with, (and there is ample evidence that that is the case), then I believe your confidence that this General who wishes to court martial women for pregnancy would not ignore the circumstances of that conception--is misplaced.

[niyad]

3. k and r

[pleah]

6. K&R

[kctim]

7. Where were her rights denied?

I see bad choices, assumptions being made and disobeying regulations though.

[PDJane]

9. How very upright of you.........

and how very, very, judgemental.

[kctim]

10. Nope, just truthful

which is easy to do when one doesn't allow emotions to rule over common sense.

[HopeHoops]

8. I think it is completely wrong, but at least it isn't just targeted at women.

Men who impregnate a fellow soldier are also penalized in the same way. Of course this only applies within the military. A woman who becomes pregnant by someone outside the military is still fucked, literally and figuratively.

This also stinks of penalizing the masses for the deeds of a few. They recently put an infant in protective services and jailed the mother for refusing to deploy because she didn't have adequate care for her newborn. I think this is a knee-jerk reaction to a handful of events and I am working on a letter to send to my Congress critters. I suggest everyone else do the same.

[SoCalDem]

11. Sex has always had consequences, and pregnancy is the most obvious of them

I realize that there are always "oopsies", and that even birth control has its failures-to-protect, but she had options.. she just did not want to tell anyone about her pregnancy..she wanted it over. Her location & "job" made it difficult, but she had to have known how difficult it would be if she got pregnant, so while I feel for her, I have more sympathy for the young teen who gets abstinence only education, and judgemental threats from parents..or for the poor woman with 4 kids already, who has a surprise pregnancy.

The ability to procreate has always set some women on a path to inequality in the jobforce, military or not.. this was a full-grown, educated woman who DID have options.. she may not have liked them, but she did have them

[Cid_B]

12. Just to be clear...

What is the author asking for?

Access to abortion facilities at any military post downrange? including the outlying ones?
Justification to conceal medical procedures from her chain of command?
Changing the UCMJ regulations to allow sex while downrange?

All of the above? None of the above? Something else entirely?

[Cid_B]

14. Kick because I am curious....

[FLDCVADem]

21. Unrec for an untrue headline

[David Zephyr]

20. K&R.

Thanks for this informative post and link.