4.6 • 8.7K Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
As the country reels from last Friday’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, people, politicians, and health care providers are scrambling to figure out what’s next. But pregnancy was already an especially complicated process, full of rules and regulations, for one particular sector of the population — the military. According to a 2018 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, women made up just 16.5% of active-duty service members in the Department of Defense; however, military women are more likely than their civilian counterparts to have unintended pregnancies. They’re also more likely to suffer a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, making medical care an essential should the department continue to diversify. This week, Brooke sits down with Kyleanne Hunter, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and a Marine Corps combat veteran, to talk about how the department had just begun to make positive changes, and now sits in a complex limbo.
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0:00.0 | I'm Brooke Gladstone with OTM's Midweek podcast. |
0:05.7 | In the wake of last Friday's decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, people, |
0:11.9 | politicians, and healthcare providers are scrambling to figure out what's next for one |
0:17.3 | sector of the population. |
0:19.6 | Pregnancy was already fraught with extraordinary complications no matter where they were based, |
0:26.0 | women in the military. |
0:29.6 | According to a 2018 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, women made up a substantial |
0:37.2 | 16.5% of active duty service members in the Department of Defense, and the DOD wants to |
0:44.7 | boost that number even more. |
0:47.5 | Military women, though, between the ages of 18 to 44, are more likely than their civilian |
0:53.6 | counterparts to have unintended pregnancies. |
0:57.3 | There's also research suggesting they're more likely to be sexually assaulted or experience |
1:03.2 | intimate partner violence. |
1:05.8 | One study done in 2017 found that over a three-year period, 31% of military women reported |
1:13.9 | a miscarriage. |
1:15.7 | Overall, for known pregnancies, the Mayo Clinic estimates 10 to 20% of pregnancies |
1:21.8 | end in miscarriage, though they added could be higher, but historically, and even today, |
1:27.5 | there's little data on how or whether military service can affect fertility. |
1:33.7 | Or why military women might be at higher risk of pregnancy complications? |
1:38.8 | What seems certain is that should the DOD want more women in the ranks, medical care will |
1:44.8 | only become more essential. |
1:46.7 | And according to Kailan Hunter, a senior political analyst at the Rand Corporation and a Marine |
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