Department Of Defense Says Military Enlistment Wouldn’t Be So Low If Women Could Just Kill More Babies

The Department of Defense seems to be using the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade as an excuse to promote the Biden administration’s abortion agenda.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s Oct. 20, 2022, memorandum, “Ensuring Access to Reproductive Health Care,” cites Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health in directing the services to provide time off from duty and travel expenses for service members and dependents seeking abortions that are not available at their military medical treatment facility or the adjacent civilian community.  

Mischaracterizing Dobbs

The first sentence of the memo claims, “the 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.” This is an astounding claim, unsupported by facts, details, or supporting data. 

Dobbs, which returned abortion regulation to the states, did change the regulatory landscape of the abortion industry. But the Department of Defense has not changed its policy of providing abortions in military medical treatment facilities where the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest or the life of the mother was in danger. 

After Dobbs, a service member’s access to off-post abortion services will vary based on their duty location. Some states, such as California, have permissive abortion laws. Others, such as Oklahoma, ban virtually all abortions. But Austin’s claim that Dobbs adversely affected “reproductive health care” other than abortion seriously mischaracterizes the holding in Dobbs.

First, Dobbs held that the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. Dobbs did not address, much less restrict, hinder, or otherwise regulate “reproductive health care” apart from abortion. 

Second, after mischaracterizing the scope of Dobbs, the memo claims the decision has adverse implications for readiness, recruiting, and retention. Again, the memo provides no data, evidence, or details to support this astonishing claim.

The effect of Dobbs returning abortion regulation to the states means service members and their dependents stationed in some states will have to travel to more permissive states to secure an abortion. That could affect some service members seeking to end the lives of their unborn children, but does it really affect readiness, recruiting, and retention, as Austin asserts?

Dobbs Did Not Affect Recruiting

Not according to an exhaustive Army Times study analyzing the Army’s dismal recruiting efforts in 2022. The Army failed to meet its 2022 recruitment goals primarily because of economic factors, the general lack of fitness of American youth (only 23 percent meet the medical fitness standards), the effects of the pandemic, and Covid vaccination policies.

The timeline of events also discredits Austin’s claims. The Army Times analysis quoted the senior enlisted leader at Training & Doctrine Command, CSM Daniel Hendrex, who said it was known by January 2022 that the recruiting mission was “facing difficult headwinds.” That’s when the service started increasing recruitment bonuses across the board.

A draft of the Dobbs decision leaked on May 2, and the final opinion was released on June 24, 2022, six months after the Army was well aware of the recruiting crisis.