I didn’t realize that in joining the military, women agreed to give up their right to medical treatments to which the Religious Right objected … but apparently they do:
Late Thursday, the Obama administration issued a new order for the U.S. military requiring all military hospitals and health centers to stock the morning after pill. The Department of Defense will soon begin having military medical facilities stock the Plan B drug, which can sometimes cause an abortion.
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Obama’s decision is not going over well with Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America.
“The military needs to focus on its prime mission, yet leftists view it as a means to promote their agenda,” she told LifeNews.com. “The morning-after pill is highly ineffective in preventing pregnancies and completely useless in preventing sexually-transmitted diseases. But it’s a political tool for abortion advocates.”
Wright worries the decision is the first step to pushing abortions at military hospitals.
“By making this drug required, the next step will making drugs like RU-486, the abortion pill, mandatory,” she said. “And doctors or pharmacists who have objections will be purged from the ranks.”
“The military needs to focus on discipline and proper behavior – because lives depend on it – not promoting risky behavior,” Wright continued.
The Family Research Council is likewise demanding that women in the military be denied access to this option:
“Family Research Council opposes requiring military bases worldwide to carry Levonorgestrel, or ‘Plan B,’ because the drug can prevent a fertilized embryo from implanting in the uterus and thereby destroy a human life. We can all agree that there is a huge difference between preventing and destroying human life. And women in uniform deserve to know the truth about their medications.
“In the last year we have witnessed the Obama Administration move from the status quo of abortion as legal and available in health care plans to aggressively promoting U.S. government funded abortions. In the same way, the fact that Plan B is optional for military facilities is not sufficient for the Obama Administration, so now military facilities will be compelled to carry and disseminate Plan B.
“Moreover, a requirement to carry this drug would be a violation of the conscience rights of military personnel who have moral objections to providing it, not to mention the majority of American taxpayers supporting military operations. Taxpayers should not be required to pay for military medical personnel to carry Plan B anywhere in the world … Forcing military professionals to carry over-the-counter Plan B will make it more difficult to enforce age requirements for a drug not widely tested on young girls.
“Finally, the requirement to carry Plan B on military bases doesn’t include a parental notification provision in cases in which a minor obtains Plan B by prescription. This new policy undermines the right of parents to properly care for their daughters’ physical well-being. In a society that requires teachers to send students to the nurse for a band-aid, the Administration’s approach on something profoundly more important than a paper cut defies common sense.”
