ICYMI: “It’s About Controlling Women”: Veterans Reject Tommy Tuberville’s Antiabortion Crusade

In New Vanity Fair Piece, Two Free & Just Storytellers Share Their Stories of Receiving Abortion Care While Serving in the Military

WASHINGTON – In a new piece from Vanity Fair, two Free & Just storytellers share their stories of receiving abortion care while in the military. Joanna Sweatt shares that having an abortion while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps allowed her to continue her service. Carrie Frail shares that having an abortion while serving in the Air Force “saved her life” as she was in an abusive relationship.

After the fall of Roe v. Wade, the Biden Administration enacted a policy to allow service members to take administrative leave to access abortion care. The policy also allows service members to request “travel and transportation allowances” to access reproductive health care. Since this policy was enacted, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville (AL) has blocked hundreds of critical military nominations in protest of the policy. 

Reproductive care has never been easy for service members to access, and now since Roe was overturned, it’s become even more difficult with nearly half states enacting abortion bans. Service members now often must travel hundreds of miles to access abortion care, necessitating leave and travel allowances to cover expenses. Joanna and Carrie speak to how important it was for them to be able to access care while they were serving in the military.

Joanna Sweatt speaks to her decision to have an abortion while in the military:

“During her service, Sweatt and her husband—who have celebrated 26 years of marriage—had two more children. But after their third, the couple said they wanted a tubal ligation and a vasectomy. The military doctors, according to Sweatt, deemed the two too young—at 23 and 24—to make such decisions. So Sweatt went back on birth control but got pregnant again; this time, she decided to get an abortion.

“That abortion allowed her to continue her service, which included a deployment to Iraq after September 11, 2001. And when she got pregnant again after returning from tour, she had an ectopic pregnancy and needed another abortion. Those decisions, Sweatt wrote in an essay for NBC News, ‘ensured that I could be the best mother I could be to my three children, and they guaranteed that I could continue serving my country to the best of my ability.’”

Carrie Frail explains how her ability to access to abortion care while in the military saved her life:

“‘I was in a relationship where even family and friends were like, ‘Carrie, he is going to kill you at some point.’ It was very abusive. I had been hospitalized. I had been threatened with firearms,” she said.

“Then she got pregnant.

“Frail recalled that this person made it clear he wanted her to get an abortion, even suggesting that he would ‘do me physical harm to make me miscarry.’ She went ahead with a medication abortion. About a year and a half later, Frail was finally able to leave the relationship, something she said she might never have been able to do had she not moved forward with the procedure. ‘I firmly believe that my abortion saved my life,’ she told [Vanity Fair].”

If you’re interested in speaking with Joanna Sweatt or Carrie Frail, please email zoe@freeandjust.us.