On Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the Defense Department would be funding traveling and transportation to service members seeking abortions.
“The recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has impacted access to reproductive health care with readiness, recruiting, and retention implications for the Force,” Austin wrote in a memo. “Since the Supreme Court’s decision, we have heard concerns from many of our Service members and their families about the complexity and the uncertainty that they now face in accessing reproductive health care, including abortion services.”
“We also recognize that recent developments may create legal and financial risk for our health care providers as they carry out their lawful federal duties,” he continued. “I am committed to the Department taking all appropriate action, within its authority and consistent with applicable federal law, as soon as possible to ensure that our Service members and their families can access reproductive health care and our health care providers can operate effectively.”
Austin stated that service members will be allowed 20 weeks to disclose their pregnancies to their commanders, unless “specific requirements to report sooner, such as those necessitated by occupational health hazards, are set forth in policy.”
He additionally said that health care providers may not “notify or disclose reproductive health information to commanders unless this presumption is overcome by specific exceptions set forth in policy, such as risk of harm to mission, occupational safety requirements, or acute medical conditions interfering with duty.”
Austin then directed the Department to create “uniform Department of Defense policy that allows for appropriate administrative absence consistent with applicable federal law for non-covered reproductive health care.” And to establish “travel and transportation allowances for Service members and their dependents, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law and operational requirements, and as necessary amend any applicable travel regulations, to facilitate official travel to access noncovered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a Service member’s permanent duty station.”
