Pregnant Soldiers and the 'Right to Abort'
From which we divine that reduced military readiness does not worry
Planned Parenthood quite so much as does reduced military abortion
readiness.
On May 18, 2000, the United States House of Representatives voted down
an amendment offered by Democrat Representative Loretta Sanchez.
Sanchez's proposal would have lifted the current ban prohibiting
overseas soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines and their dependents from
getting abortions in military hospitals. Presently, federal law
prohibits abortions at overseas military facilities even if military
personnel or dependents are willing to pay for the abortions.
In response, Gloria Feldt, president of the Nation's largest chain of
private abortion businesses issued a press statement criticizing
Congress' refusal to lift the ban. As often happens, Feldt's comments
reveal the undisciplined mind of the abortion advocate. Feldt pressed
three criticisms of the ban. None of those criticisms is valid, let
alone persuasive.
First, Feldt charged, "[the] ban discriminates against women who have
volunteered to serve their country by prohibiting them from exercising
their legally protected right to choose simply because they are serving
on foreign soil." The charge of discrimination is the first refuge of
serious scoundrels. In the fit of the moment, perhaps, Feldt forgot to
screech, "bigots!"
Why does the charge of discrimination fail? Begin by setting aside the
fact that the claimed injury, denial of the right to purchase a
privately funded abortion at an American military hospital, is
unrecognized in American law. The charge fails because the ban does not
discriminate unlawfully.
Americans are so intimidated by the charge of "discrimination" and of
"bigotry" that it often suffices to make the unsubstantiated charge.
Shamed into silence, many persons who have never committed the sin of
bigotry will hang their head at the accusation. But "discriminating" is,
in fact, a neutral value. "Discriminating" is identifying the
differences between things. How many traffic fatalities are avoided
because the average driver can discriminate between the colors on a
traffic light? No one would get far in a campaign for color-blindedness
in driving. On the other hand, racial profiling calls up differences in
skin color as an aid to law enforcement and drug interdiction but does
so in ways that our color-blind Constitution prohibits. Thus, the fact
that a man "discriminates" tells us nothing about him until we know the
subject of his discriminations and the judgments that result from his
discriminations.
The ban on use of military medical facilities for privately funded
abortions does not discriminate at all. The ban does not take the form
of gender discrimination: neither male soldiers nor female ones may use
overseas military medical facilities to obtain an abortion. And the ban
does not discriminate based on location: neither stateside military
medical facilities nor those found overseas are available for the uses
sought by Representative Sanchez. Undoubtedly, Feldt charged
discrimination because home-based soldiers can, with leave or
permission, buy an abortion at a private business in the United States.
But pregnant soldiers overseas may do this too. It may be more expensive
to fly to the United States, but there is no discrimination since all
soldiers remain free, on leave or with permission, to do the same thing
in the same places.
Second, Feldt charged, "[the] ban threatens the life of servicewomen.
Women stationed overseas depend on their base hospitals for medical care
and are often placed in areas where local health care facilities are
inadequate or unavailable. The ban may cause women to delay the
procedure while she looks for a safe provider, or may force a woman
facing a crisis pregnancy to seek an[] illegal, unsafe abortion." Hmmmm.
From whence comes the greater threat to the life of a servicewoman?
Feldt sees less than instant access to elective abortion facilities as
life-threatening. But the Supreme Court of the United States has held
that States may impose waiting periods before an abortion is obtained so
long as the period does not amount to an undue burden on a women's
abortion liberty. Thus, the mere fact that a delay occurs between the
moment a soldier decides to abort her unborn child and the moment when
that child has died does not unduly burden any recognized right of the
soldier.
Perhaps Feldt should give some thought to the position in which female
military personnel have freely chosen to put themselves (no American
woman has ever been subject to conscription into the United States Armed
Forces). Women soldiers, even when serving at home in the United States,
are amidst the pursuit of a high-stakes, high-risk profession. The
accepted risk of service in an armed military force -- the purpose of
which is to kill people and to break things -- is that there are
opposing forces guided by the same principles.
Still, suppose that servicewomen enlist without any intention or desire
of participating in combat and without even any marginal risk that their
expectations will be frustrated. Is it true that barring pregnant
soldiers from buying abortions from military hospitals threatens their
lives? Feldt could not support her claim without proof that women are
dying because of being unable to purchase abortions at overseas military
facilities. Feldt may possess evidence on this point, but its omission
from her press statement suggests that she does not have facts to
support her claim. Nonetheless, suppose that things turn out just as
Feldt feared. A pregnant servicewoman overseas would be free to act
responsibly or to act irresponsibly. The same options are guaranteed to
her counterpart stateside. If she chooses to pursue her unborn child's
from an illegal abortion business, she assumes the risks involved.
Feldt's assertion of the need for exceptions for crisis pregnancies is a
tease as well. What sort of crisis pregnancies has she in mind? Those
that would make it inconvenient for a servicewoman to climb up into a
sniper's nest? To slip down into the belly gun position on an aircraft?
Or does Feldt refer to the crisis pregnancies that result from sexual
fraternization with other military personnel at the risk of unit morale
and cohesion?
Third, Feldt asserted, "[the] ban does not regulate where American
taxpayer dollars are spent, but dictates to women what they can and
cannot do with their own money." Feldt's assertion presumes a thing that
it cannot prove. The assumed fact is that the cost of an abortion can be
neatly segregated from the cost of constructing a hospital or health
care facility, or from the cost of training military medical personnel.
Feldt's remark suggests that the domestic cost of an abortion procedure,
approximately five hundred dollars, if charged to the gravid soldier,
sailor, marine or airwoman, would adequately cover the cost to the
United States of placing and maintaining the overseas military facility
in which the abortion occurs. In fact, full service hospitals represent
multi-hundreds of millions of dollars in capital outlays; even mere free
standing clinics and ambulatory surgical facilities represent
multimillion dollar capital investments. Thus, the actual cost of
constructing and maintaining such facilities would have to be added into
the pricetags for abortions; of course, Feldt would then accuse the
military of price gouging.
Moreover, Feldt wrongly opines that the ban on elective abortion
services "dictates to women what they can and cannot do with their own
money." The assertion is wrong on multiple counts. First, the ban
actually only dictates what the American people will or will not do with
their budget monies. Feldt displays real contempt for those upon whose
backs she would balance the tax burden of the United States Government
when she ignores the right of the people to refuse to fund procedures of
which they disapprove. Second, the ban does not dictate to women in the
military what they can do with their own money. There is no mandate in
the ban that requires donations to the poor, or investment in secure
government bonds for retirement, or any similar expenditure of personal
funds. Third, the ban does not tell expectant military mothers what they
cannot do with their own cash. The ban leaves pregnant military
personnel free to spend, invest, or fritter their money exactly as they
might wish to do. The ban just does not lend to pregnant soldiers the
power to demand that government facilities be used inconsistently with
the will of the people.
Feldt ignores two guiding principals that the Supreme Court has
emphasized in its abortion decisions. The first principle is that the
government is free to prefer childbirth to abortion as the best outcome
of any pregnancy. The Court has precisely held this point several times.
So, although Roe vs. Wade and cases following Roe restrains the hands of
the people significantly, they remain free to develop benefit programs,
for example, under which abortion is discouraged and carrying a
pregnancy to term is encouraged. The second guiding principle, which
flows from the first, is that the people remain free to refuse to fund
abortions as a reflection of their right to prefer childbirth to
abortion. In fact, on that very point, the Supreme Court affirmed the
right of the City of St. Louis, Missouri, to refuse to allow the use of
its facilities for abortion services.
In the end, Feldt and Planned Parenthood remain utterly predictable in
their unprincipled devotion to abortion. For them, every word in
derogation of abortion rights and every act that fails to prove devotion
to the abortion liberty is not only suspect, but evil. But the Congress
of the United States, in this small but important instance, demonstrated
admirable resolve and commitment to principle by turning away the
Sanchez amendment.
Truthserum
thetruthserum@yahoo.com
