• The Defense Department plans to pay for service members seeking abortions to travel to states that allow abortions, according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
• The Pentagon claims that not paying for abortion travel could discourage service members from joining or remaining in the military.
• “Such effects qualify as unusual, extraordinary, hardship or emergency circumstances for Service members and their dependents and will interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force,” Austin said in the statement.

Tagged: Abortion