Scientists say the culture of silence around abortion in the active-duty military is growing

Researcher Caitlin Gerdts planned to publish a modern study on abortion access for active-duty military service members, similar to the one from 2019, which was published with 323 participants.

But over six months in 2024, in the modern legal environment surrounding abortion access, the research team was able to find only three service members who agreed to participate, even though their identities were to remain secret. With such a tiny number of people, the study could not be completed, and the group released a report analytical essay Instead.

“It makes sense that this is a particularly difficult moment,” said Gerdts, vice president of research at the international nonprofit Ibis Reproductive Health.

Researchers say it’s significant to understand what barriers active-duty service members face living in any state – especially states with strict abortion bans. But people who spoke to Stateline said access to this population is becoming increasingly challenging due to the chilling effect on state laws, the actions of the U.S. Department of Defense under its current leadership and military-specific factors that existed long before federal abortion protections were repealed.

The Department of Defense did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment before publication.

The Trump administration is officially depriving veterans of access to abortion

In many cases, research on abortion tends to focus on providers, especially when studies involve interviews. But among organizations that frequently talk to civilian patients — including Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco — researchers told Stateline they haven’t experienced the same recruitment problems Gerdts described, suggesting the problem is specific to the military.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, more than 230,000 women were on energetic duty in the U.S. military in 2021, and 95% of them were women of reproductive age, between 18 and 44 years of age. The RAND Corporation found in 2022 that approximately 40% of active-duty women are in states with significantly restricted or no access to abortion, including states with massive military burdens such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas.

Kristen Jozkowski, a senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, said not being able to collect data from a specific population could make it more challenging to lend a hand them.

“As a researcher and behavioral scientist, I think the problem is the inability to gain access to any population, especially one that may be unique or at increased risk of something happening,” Jozkowski said. “This limits our ability to advance knowledge as a society and make empirically based decisions and recommendations.”

Policy change

After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took office in January 2025, one of the first directives issued by his department rescinded a two-year-old policy that allowed service members to receive abortion care regardless of where they are stationed without having to exploit one of the 30 days of leave they are entitled to each year. It also allowed members and their dependents to be reimbursed for related travel expenses such as transportation, accommodation and meals.

The policy went into effect shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, issued under Democratic President Joe Biden. In the seven months from June to December 2023, it was used 12 times and out-of-state trips cost approximately $40,000, She reported to the Associated Pressciting Pentagon data.

Under TRICARE military insurance, abortion itself is covered only if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or if it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant patient. However, the current policy also does not allow for out-of-state travel, related expenses, or special leave.

The Trump administration recently changed its policy regarding military veterans.

In December, the U.S. Department of Justice officially rescinded a 2022 policy that allowed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide abortion and abortion-related counseling, allowing it only in cases where a pregnant patient’s life is in danger. Estimates from the nonprofit National Partnership for Women & Families, which supports abortion access, found that as of June 2023, nearly 400,000 veterans lived in states that had already banned abortion or were likely to ban it.

Modest research

Caitlin Russell, researcher and US Army veteran, researcher and US Army veteran Caitlin Russell says that the topic of abortion as it relates to women on energetic duty is chronically underestimated. A review of existing research from 1991 to 2022, which Russell recently completed, found that over those three decades, there were 15 studies or policy papers that focused specifically on this topic.

“I think even people who are more compassionate or evidence-based about protecting health care workers don’t realize the scope of the problem,” said Russell, a researcher and director of the nurse practitioner internship program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Russell stated that she was unaware of military policy regarding abortion during her service. Since then, she has spoken to dozens of military healthcare providers, leaders and staff who are also unfamiliar with existing policies. She helped create a website called Camo Care information from military sources to lend a hand fill this gap.

As a veteran, Russell had managed to find participants for previous studies, but she found she had more trouble recently, in part because of restrictions from social media companies. According to her, Russell paid to run an ad on Facebook and Instagram in delayed 2024 seeking energetic participants, but the ad was rejected due to a policy banning ads with social issues.

Russell said the lack of involvement from soldiers makes sense given the culture of silence and discouragement on women’s issues in general. She served in the Army from 2006 to 2013, including a year and a half as a company commander at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and two deployments to Afghanistan. Russell said the culture treated women as if they were frail due to menstrual pain, for example.

“When I was at Bragg, you didn’t even talk about periods, let alone abortion,” she said.

This includes Joanna Sweatt, a former Marine who, while stationed in California in 2002, found out she was pregnant with her fourth child, despite using contraception. She knew she would soon be deployed to Iraq and could not afford another child.

She found out she was pregnant during a routine test at the base’s medical facility, which is staffed mostly by nurses, after she told them she wasn’t feeling well. This possibility hadn’t occurred to her when the result came back positive, but she already knew what her decision would be.

“I thought, ‘I need to have an abortion.’ I remember saying that out clamorous and the person told me, ‘Well, we can’t lend a hand you at all. It’s something you have to do yourself. And that’s it,” Sweatt said.

Sweatt did her own research to find a clinic, and the only appointment she could make was on a Thursday, which meant she had to request time off. This meant she had to detail why she needed to take time off, where she would be staying and how many miles she was from the base, and she had to get her request approved. And then, she said, it became part of the gossip based on her having had an abortion.

“Your life basically becomes public when you join this ministry,” Sweatt said.

Sweatt is currently the national organizing director of Common Defense, a veteran-led progressive advocacy organization, and said the events unfolding at the national level can send chills down the spine of soldiers working under tight chains of command and expecting respect. She referred to the Trump administration deploying the National Guard to U.S. cities, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detaining veterans and immigrant family members on energetic duty, and recent reports that Hegseth is denying promotions to military employees based on race and gender.

She also cited news of the firing of more than a dozen senior military officers and the termination of many judge advocates general positions – better known as JAGs – in early 2025.

All of these developments deepen a culture that was already known for retaliatory behavior, Sweatt said, and make it unlikely that service members would want to participate in any activities that could make them vulnerable to targeting, even in an anonymous survey.

Russell said that when she served in the military, she would not have trusted the information she provided to remain private. She assumed her phone and computer were being monitored.

“It sounds a little paranoid, but that’s the reality you live in,” she said.

Sweatt said that as part of its organizing work, Common Defense conducts surveys and holds community meetings in places with immense bases — such as Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas — but many people request that some information about them, including their base, be redacted on the surveys. At social events, including online Zoom meetings, some military members send a family member in their place to ask questions on their behalf.

“They are very careful about who they come into contact with,” she added.

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at: kmoseley@stateline.org.