The Pentagon has struck a Biden administration policy of covering travel costs for service members and their dependents who must cross state lines to receive abortions and other reproductive care, according to a new memo.
The change, which took effect Tuesday, was announced in a memo posted by the Defense Travel Management Office on Wednesday.
The move is the latest Trump administration action meant to scrub Biden-era social policies that critics claim distract the military from its mission of defending the nation.
Under President Biden, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in early 2023 set in place policies to provide paid leave and reimburse troops and dependents who had to travel outside the state where they were stationed to obtain an abortion or other reproductive care.
Such access was offered so troops could safely receive needed healthcare, even if they were based in states where abortion was significantly curtailed following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
The Biden administration pointed to a Defense Department legal memo drafted in October 2022, which found the law “does not prohibit the use of funds to pay expenses, such as a per diem or travel expenses, that are incidental to the abortion.”
Republican opponents, however, attacked the policy as a loophole to federal laws that prevented taxpayer funds from being used for abortions.
The issue prompted Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to hold up nonpolitical military promotions for nearly a year to protest the policy. He argued it was a violation of the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition on spending federal funds on abortions. Hyde does, however, allow funding in cases of rape, incest or to save a patient’s life.
But President Trump last week issued an executive order titled, “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” seeking to close any such loopholes.
The Pentagon’s action was quickly lambasted by lawmakers, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who led a group of 18 Democrat and Independent senators decrying the move.
“This decision strips away service members’ ability to access the reproductive care they need, which is nothing short of abhorrent,” Shaheen writes. “It runs contrary to a core goal of the Department of Defense — to ensure the health and well-being of all our service members so that our force remains ready at a time at all times to protect Americans and keep this nation safe.”
The lawmakers note that U.S. service members have no control over where they are stationed “and what state laws may govern their bodies” and that taking away the travel policy “does nothing to advance military readiness.”
The letter adds that at a time when the military is already facing recruitment and retention challenges, the scrubbed policy sends a message to women, who make up 17 percent of the U.S. military, “that they are not as valuable as their male counterparts.”
