Story here. Let’s set aside the delicious irony of such a devout Catholic getting knocked up from pre-marital sex and get to some background information. The Air Force allows single parents to serve. Any female who gets pregnant while serving is given the option of separating, but they’re not forced out. My understanding is that there’s some extra scrutiny required - a thorough family plan for deployment purposes, for instance. But I know plenty of single mothers (and fathers) on active duty.
What you can’t do is join up as a single parent, a distinction I don’t fully comprehend. The beginning of one’s career generally isn’t conducive to child rearing, especially as a single parent, but I don’t see why it should be an automatic disqualifier. Like active duty folks, single parent recruits and cadets should have the option of filing a thorough family plan showing how they intend on caring for their child during OCS and training schools; if the plan is solid, let them join up, I say. Everything else about the process is waiverable, so why not this?
However, the cadet in question is trying to turn this into abortion issue, and I don’t get that. Yes, it’s technically true that if she got an abortion she could still join, but the intent of the policy isn’t to encourage abortion (or adoption), it’s to prevent single parents from joining at all. That is to say, the expected course of action for recruits and cadets who are denied entry is to just go find another job, not to go about killing their children or fetuses. Am I wrong here?
First things first. I agree with the policy. Usually one’s first tour is a difficult one that entails being very operational. Going on a ship, in a ground unit, deploying etc. Even if that isn’t the case, your first tour is hard in that everything is new. The military doesn’t want to add to that by having you focus as a single parent on your child (as you should) to the exclusion of the your job. It just not in our best interest to have you as a single parent, especially in your first tour. This isn’t a social program.
On the abortion issue. I can’t see how this policy in any way can be twisted into making it seem that the military is forcing this woman to get an abortion.
My wife and I joined the Army together and we had a two year old at the time. I know that isn’t quite the same, but its real close. We had to have a plan in place in case both of us got deployed and that is pretty much the same thing.
Exactly. Going through basic training with a 3-month-old child would be incredibly hard, but the military is 100% ok with that as long as the servicemember is married. If you’re not married, they won’t let you try, regardless of your support structure. You can be engaged and have a live-in mother, but unless you have a marriage certificate, they won’t let you join. As soon as you get that piece of paper, though, you’re somehow qualified handle the hardship.
It’s a meaningless distinction, as far as I’m concerned.
Are you asking from a legal standpoint, or do you mean on a policy or moral basis? If the former, the short answer is that even if the policy does force her to get an abortion, the courts won’t do anything about it because they give great deference to the military in determining who is qualified to serve. Plus, unless the Air Force is happy to have single fathers signing up, she probably doesn’t have a basis for a legal challenge anyway.
The married/non-married distinction is a bit different, though (assuming she was an unmarried-but-not-single-parent).
From a legal basis, I don’t think anyone has a right to join the military, and as long as they’re not discriminating against a protected class, they’re in the clear. Single parents (of both genders) are treated equally shitty, so there’s no legal discrimination, as far as I’m concerned.
Morally, or at least practically, her logic is at least sound. That is to say, she could still join if she got an abortion, and in that sense, the policy “encourages” abortion. I guess my question is, do reasonable people think that abortion is an expected or acceptable response to such a policy? If you were pro-life, could you implement such a policy with a clean conscience?
Agree with everything above. Your initial training and first tour are very difficult and nobody wants to compound the hardship on an inexperienced servicemember (SM).
The difference between an initial-entry SM and an experienced SM is the amount of time and money the service has invested in that SM. Once a SM has been trained and equipped, losing that SM is a liability. This is why single-parent SMs are allowed to stay under certain conditions. They’d rather work with you through a difficult situation than just boot you out and lose their investment.
The same is true of SMs who are injured. Disabled recruits are not allowed to join (depending on the condition, obviously), but if an established SM becomes injured they are sometimes allowed to stay.
As for the issue of it somehow being related to abortion, this is just dumb. Service is not a right. You may serve only if you meet the standards.
By the same logic, you could say military weight standards encourage eating disorders, and fitness standards encourage steroid abuse. If you don’t meet the standards, don’t join.
More than anything, this sounds like an example of our entitlement culture run amok, in which people believe they deserve everything and refuse to acknowledge that sometimes they have to make choices.
In the interest of fairness, the Air Force had already invested $92,000 in her education, which she’s now being asked to pay back. Yes, it’s her own fault that she has to pay the money back (she should have known the rules prior to getting pregnant), but I’m not all that eager to indict 22-year-olds for having sloppy pre-marital sex. That’s an “oops” that can happen to lots of people, except in her case, it’s a $92,000 oops.
You have no idea the problems we have deploying single parents. It’s a mess. That support structure you mention has to be able to support that child without it’s mother for up to a year. It’s not like they are watching the child while you go to the store for goodness sake.
Why should the military sign up for this difficulty if it doesn’t need to? It’s your tax dollars at work (or not in this case). She signed the contact. She really doesn’t know where babies come from?
You are entirely correct, because she should have known the rules. I’ve seen many people receive punishment for having sex and/or getting knocked up when the military forbid it (such as when they were deployed).
As for why they made the decision after already investing in her college, I cannot add anything more than I’ve already said.
Also, I’m kind of concerned about this article. It says things like:
She’s an officer. Officers don’t enlist. It’s a nitpick, I know.
In the interest of fairness? What does this mean? She signed a contract. To be in the military. You know guns, responsibility, that kinda thing.
She should have read the contract. Our used a 50 cent condom for goodness sake. It’s not a tennis club. It an ‘oops’ that should happen to a military Officer.
Steronz, should we hold anyone accountable for anything? My God.
Maybe my perspective is skewed because I’m Air Force myself, and we don’t deploy with the same ferocity as other branches. Especially the nurse corps. Let’s be realistic about what she’s going to be doing.
For the record, I don’t think she should be allowed to join the Air Force at this point. She violated the rules of her contract, and yes, she should be held accountable. At the same time, I understand why she’s upset. I’d also be in favor of changing the Air Force’s policy on single parents, so that if this happened again in the future, the cadet in question would be allowed to join (with some caveats). I’ll forgive your snark because I’m not sure if I made my position entirely clear.
Likewise, I assume I’m a little harsh because in my Army time I’ve seen too many Yossarian wannabes who volunteer and then decide they can’t/don’t/won’t stick it out.
It’s just that at some point, in our society people need to follow the establish rules or live by the established consequences. Why should we have her sign a contract at all then?? The pussification of our society continues unabated. And if we can’t exercise responsibility in the military I don’t know where we are headed.
Once again, we’ll just get a lawyer and fight to be the exception. And (no snarkiness intended) the Air Force is the most civilian of all the military branches, and the medical community even less so, so she might well fit in.
But I do pity the Officer that she reports to. After this, there won’t be a rule or regulation that she’ll think applies to her.
I can see how this really is almost a forced abortion. If she doesn’t, she’ll have a $92k debt, still without a degree, a new baby to care for and a dishonorable discharge to explain in every interview. I guess they might make it a medical - either way it’s a big mark against you with most companies.
OTOH, it’s really more about forcing marriage than forcing abortion. One has to wonder if this policy might not have originated as a morality-based rule intended to push young men to either marry the mother or stay out of the service.
Long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I looked into joining the reserves. I was a single parent at the time and was told that I’d have to sign over my parental rights to someone else for the duration of training.* It was one of the things that made it infeasable. Is that option available to her? I know it’s a risky can of worms for a single parent in many circumstances, but if it’s available I don’t see how the rules can be said to be encouraging abortion.
The situation may be encouraging abortion. The rules are protecting the kids.
*Signing over to grandparents was mentioned as typical.