Military women can choose combat but not abortion

The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to preserve women’s right to serve in combat positions, but deny them the right to get an abortion on a military base.
The House passed the 2006 defense authorization bill without an amendment that would have repealed the current ban on abortions at overseas military clinics. It also rejected an amendment that would have restricted the number of combat positions open to women.
The military base abortion ban was instituted by President Reagan in 1988, lifted by President Clinton in 1993 and reinstated by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1996. It prevents military hospitals from performing any abortions except in situations of rape, incest or to save the woman’s life. (Under no circumstances does the military cover the cost of the procedure.)
The message is pretty clear: We can trust you to defend our country the front lines, but we can’t trust you to make choices about your own body.