Pres. Obama ends 30-year ban on insurance coverage of abortions for military victims of rape/incest
Allison Yarrow ?@AliYarrow
(President) Obama signs DAA repealing 30-year ban on insurance coverage of abortions for military women victims of rape and incest.
____The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, which the president signed into law late Wednesday night, has been assailed by liberals and libertarians for authorizing the indefinite detention of American citizens. But the annual spending bill this year made a different sort of history as well by repealing the generation-long ban on insurance coverage for abortions for members of the armed services who are victims of rape and incest—finally giving those women the guaranteed affordable coverage in those circumstances that federal prisoners, civilian employees and Medicaid recipients have long received . . .
New Hampshire’s senior senator Jeanne Shaheen, who introduced the amendment repealing the ban that had been in effect since 1981 (PDF) called the bills passage an “important step” toward ending a policy that was “blatantly unfair to women putting their lives on the line.” Currently, military insurance only covers abortions performed to save the life of the mother, and military health care facilities will only perform them to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape and incest. Shaheen’s amendment will let insurance pick up the cost of the procedure in such cases, rather than forcing the woman to pay out of pocket . . .
Shaheen, who has long worked to secure reproductive rights advances for women, agreed that rape in the military is still a systemic problem, which needs to be addressed, and deemed the repeal of the abortion ban is a small step in that direction.
“We have a long way to go to ensuring policies are carried out across the military,” she said.
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Jeanne
