Military Health Insurance: How Abortion is Unfairly Limited for Military Members

There are people who disagree with any abortion, and others who think all abortion should be available to anyone on demand. Most of us, including me, fall in the middle; we believe that abortion for certain limited situations should always be legal, but have differing views about where the limit to abortion falls.

Suppose - you knew you were carrying a baby that could not live. Could not. A baby with no brain, a baby with gross deformities, a baby that would grow inside you for the remainder of your pregnancy, be born, and die within minutes or days.

Or - suppose you were raped and became pregnant. Or - you found out that you had a physical problem that made it dangerous for you to carry a baby to term.

In the ordinary civilian world, you might be able to pay for such an abortion yourself. But young military members and their families often don't have that luxury. Moving from place to place, it's difficult for the spouse to acquire and keep a job above minimum wage. Many young military families are eligible for food stamps. The spouse is often in the same position as a single parent: when her husband is out to sea or on deployment, she is the only person caring for children and home. Military members often make less than half what their civilian counterparts would earn, even when you figure in military benefits. So the free health coverage they receive is important.

Yet in 2002, a young Navy wife found out that the baby she carried was anencephalic - it had no forebrain or cerebellum. It would most likely live only minutes after she gave birth. At 4 months into her pregnancy, the most sensible and least painful thing for her to do would be terminate the pregnancy.

But Tricare, the insurance company covering military families, would not allow that. Its policy is written in such a way that ONLY in cases where the mother's life is at risk should abortion be paid for. This young family faced a $3000 medical bill, or the pain of going through another four months carrying a baby that would die.