DoD to Make Emergency Contraception Available to Women Soldiers

In a giant win for women’s reproductive rights, the Department of Defense has just announced that women soldiers serving overseas will have access to emergency contraception.

EC, or ‘the morning after pill’ is not stocked in the health facilities of overseas military bases thanks to the efforts of conservative lawmakers in Congress. The Bush Administration also did their part to ensure that women serving their country overseas were at higher risk for unwanted pregnancy following sex or sexual assault; Bush appointees scrapped similar recommendations by the DoD in 2002.

“This independent expert panel made the right call: Women in the military serving overseas should be able to access EC the same way women stateside do,” said Nancy Keegan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America in a press release. “I firmly believe that this decision marks an end to the political intrusion of the previous administration that blocked military women from having this guaranteed access. It’s a tragedy that women in uniform have been denied such basic health care. We applaud the medical experts for standing up for military women.”

Rep. Michael Michaud, who co-sponsored a bill with Senator Al Franken to guarantee servicewomen access to the pill said of the decision, “I commend this independent panel for doing the right thing for women serving in the military on oversea bases. I am confident that the Obama administration will follow through with this order, a welcome reversal of the political interference that delayed women’s access to emergency contraception for far too long.”

Naral has launched a letter-writing campaign thanking the DoD and urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates enact the policy as quickly as possible and stick to the decision once conservative groups like the Family Research Council start mobilizing against it.