Conservative House lawmakers on Wednesday blocked an effort to eliminate a ban on military health care facilities offering abortion care to service members on site, Rewire reports.
Background
According to Rewire, a 1996 federal law (PL 104-61, PL 104-106) prohibits the Department of Defense from providing abortion care at defense medical facilities, even when a woman pays out-of-pocket for the procedure. The law includes limited exceptions for cases of rape, incest or life endangerment.
Conservative lawmakers reject amendment lifting ban
On Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee voted 37-25 to reject a proposed amendment to the national defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017 (HR 4909) that would have lifted the ban.
Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Marc Veasey (D-Texas) proposed the amendment during a markup session on the appropriations bill. The amendment would have allowed service members and their dependents to pay out-of-pocket for abortion care at defense medical facilities.
The National Abortion Federation (NAF) submitted a letter from multiple health care provider organizations and another signed by several advocacy and medical groups expressing support for ending the ban. Separately, NARAL Pro-Choice America, which also supported lifting the prohibition, provided a fact sheet.
Comments
Before the vote, Speier criticized how federal law prohibited military service members from exercising their constitutional right to abortion care in the same manner as the civilians they defend. To illustrate the further obstacles service members face in obtaining care, she explained that the abortion clinic closest to Ellsworth Air Force Base, in South Dakota, falls outside of the travel boundaries for service members stationed there.
Speier said, "Additionally, challenges [to obtaining abortion care] both domestically and internationally include disclosing personal health information to their commanding officer in order to travel off base; approval by the unit commander, which might take days or weeks; the need to seek approval of mileage pass; limited or no access to a car; and local facilities abroad that are substandard, unsafe, or have language barriers." She added, "Members, this is just the right thing to do for our service members."
According to Rewire, conservative lawmakers contested Speier's arguments by claiming that service members could easily access transportation to off-base abortion clinics.
However, recent research shows that clinics throughout the United States are being forced to close at a record rate, severely restricting access to abortion care. Veasey also debunked conservative lawmakers' claims, citing clinic closures under Texas' "draconian" antiabortion-rights omnibus law (HB 2). He said, "This burden would be huge on the military women in the state of Texas."
Separately, NAF officials criticized conservative committee members for opposing the amendment.
NAF President and CEO Vicki Saporta said, "This ban on abortion care in [defense medical facilities] will continue to harm service women and their families until anti-abortion lawmakers allow a wom[a]n and her doctor, not politicians and JAG Officers (the legal branch concerned with military justice and law), to decide when and where she will be able to obtain the medical care she needs."
Saporta added, "The House Armed Services Committee should be working to expand access to health care for our service women and their families, not continuing to restrict it" (Grimaldi, Rewire, 4/28).
