Training videos from the Department of Veterans Affairs reveal the agency is abusing a mental health justification for abortion to bankroll access for veterans and service members who live in states where the procedure is restricted.
Statements from female service members to the VA highlighted in the instructional videos, however, suggest that the real purpose of the abortions, in many cases, is not to protect mental health but to advance military preparedness and careerism.
The videos leaked to the Post Millennial last month consist of over five hours of instructional material for VA healthcare providers who serve both veterans and active duty military personnel.
After the overturn of Roe v. Wade last summer, the Biden administration took steps to circumvent a moratorium on government-funded abortions at both the VA and the Department of Defense. The VA training videos shed light on how those departments are implementing the new rules.
Nearly immediately after the overturn of Roe, the VA and DOD responded by covering access to abortion by providing extended leave for abortion travel and covering travel costs for members and their dependents. As a result, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has blocked the promotions of hundreds of military personnel, calling for the end of the policy.
Both VA and DOD are still technically blocked from paying for abortions themselves, except for “covered” abortions: those that are a result of rape or incest or if carrying the pregnancy to term would endanger a woman’s physical or mental health.
The new rules do not outright pay for abortions outside those three exceptions, which the military has “covered” since 1976, but do pay for many of the costs surrounding “non-covered” abortions, like traveling to a state where the procedure is legal, making it much easier for beneficiaries to get abortions for any reason.
While travel and time off would be paid by taxpayer money, women using those benefits would have to pay out-of-pocket to obtain an abortion. At abortion giant Planned Parenthood, the average cost of an in-clinic abortion is around $600 in the first trimester, and the average cost of the abortion pill is around $580.
The number of women using the new policy is unknown and has not been confirmed to Congress despite Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Tuberville requesting the information from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Neither has received a response.
Mental health as a justification for abortion
The VA training videos show instructors relying heavily on the mental health justification for abortion provision.
Robin Atkins, the chairwoman of the mental health subsection of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told the Washington Examiner that she was “disturbed” by what she saw in the training videos, saying they are “villainizing pregnancy.”
“What I do see overwhelmingly [in the training videos] I have watched is the repeated idea that abortion is the answer to mental health complications … and that somehow if a woman has PTSD she requires an abortion,” Atkins said.
According to the videos, the number of women in the VA health system who have at least one mental health diagnosis and have sought abortion is staggering.
VA statistics presented in the videos indicate that 43% of reproductive-age female VA patients have at least one mental health diagnosis and that one-third have experienced military sexual trauma. Those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, intimate partner violence, or military sexual trauma are more likely to have previously sought an abortion. A DOD annual report released in April confirmed that there were nearly 7,400 separate incidences of military-related sexual assaults of service members in 2022, up 1% from 2021.
Overall, nearly 18% of the over 900,000 females in the VA health system have sought at least one abortion, per the training VA training videos.
The VA training videos also contend that a child whose mother has PTSD is at risk for significant negative health outcomes, including preterm birth, low birth weight, and long-term emotional problems.
“Mental health conditions in general are associated with increased rates of pregnancy complications, and when we look at the two diagnoses that are most common among women veterans, PTSD and depression, we see a really sizable influence,” said the unnamed instructor in the video titled “Mental Health and Abortion,” which was taped in April.
The VA instructor continued by saying that women with PTSD are more likely to have complex pregnancies, with higher rates of gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.
“Abortion has never, in any context, been proven to improve … mental health outcomes for a woman,” Dr. Ingrid Skop, an OB/GYN and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “To say we need to abort a baby because he’s likely to be damaged from the stress that his mother is enduring is very dishonest. There’s no evidence to support that.”
Military careerism factors into abortion
Although the VA instructional videos argue that these maternal and prenatal health problems connected to PTSD are a reason for abortion, the videos also indicate that the career-driven nature of the armed services strongly dissuades women from motherhood.
Reasons female veterans and active duty service members have reported for terminating a pregnancy include the “fear of reprimand” for becoming pregnant, “disruption of deployment,” an “inability to do certain jobs” while pregnant, and “the potential for pregnancy to adversely affect a career.”
Another reason for abortion described in the training videos is the prevailing “myth that people get pregnant in order to avoid deployment.”
When the DOD writes about its family planning policies, including abortion, after the overturn of Roe, it often frames the procedure as a necessity in terms of meeting “operational requirements,” “retention,” and “military readiness.”
“They would like their female workers to work like men,” Skop, who comes from a multi-generational military family, said. “There is a motivation behind corporations, and clearly in the military as well, to steer women toward abortion, to steer them away from having a family because it makes it easier for the company or for the military.”
American Principles Project President Terry Schilling agrees, telling the Washington Examiner that today “the military looks more like a publicly traded company than the institution we created to protect Americans from our enemies.”
“Biden’s Defense Department needs to understand that women are more than capable of having a career and having a family. Why are they forcing them to choose one over the other?” E.V. Osment, vice president of communications for SBA Pro-Life America, told the Washington Examiner. “Pro-life policies are not to blame for the Pentagon’s inability to meet its recruitment targets.”
DOD denies the pressure
The DOD vehemently denies any implication that it is attempting to delay or discourage families, however. A defense official told the Washington Examiner that the military does a lot to provide for families once they have started, including more money and housing.
When asked about how the military views pregnancy and whether culture is covertly discouraging it, the official, who requested anonymous reference, said it is treated like someone accidentally breaking their leg. If that happens, the official explained, there are plenty of personnel to take the spot to fill in.
The DOD official explicitly noted the changes in military abortion policy following the fall of Roe, including the provision of funds for the travel of service members to states where abortion is legal.
‘This may backfire’
“Abortion is not mental healthcare,” Atkins said, stressing the need for systemic change in the military to address violence against women and pregnancy stigma.
“If the military makes it clear that they don’t want their female soldiers to become mothers … this may drive more women away from even considering the military as an option,” Skop said. “I don’t think that they’ve considered that, but I think this may backfire on them.”
Were the military genuinely concerned about women’s mental health, Atkins said that it would put a greater emphasis on stronger prevention mechanisms to protect female service members from sexual assault and the resultant mental trauma:
“What we need for [survivors of sexual assault] is adequate protections against harm in the first place, adequate treatment afterwards, whether that be physical treatment, legal treatment, [or] mental health treatment.”