Data indicates military abortions are dropping to lowest in five years

Records from the Defense Health Agency that were shared with The Dallas Express appear to show a massive drop in abortions carried out on military members and their dependents.

Key Takeaways:

• Data from the Defense Health Agency show a decline in military abortions between 2021 and the first half of 2025.

• In 2022, the Biden administration enacted rules to increase abortion access in the military, including allowing the VA to commit abortions and mandating that the Department of Defense fund abortion travel.

• After Trump took office in January, he and his administration began dismantling Biden's pro-abortion policies.

The Details:

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, on November 20, the Defense Health Agency released data that reflect abortions "performed or funded consistent with Title 10, United States Code, Section 1093." Title 10 allows the federal funding of abortions when the child has been conceived in rape or incest or the life of the mother "would be endangered."

The records show that both surgical abortions and abortions by pill dropped between 2021 and the first half of 2025. According to TRICARE, there were 35 abortions in private-sector care in 2021, while there were just two from January through June 11, 2025. Direct-care abortions dropped from 14 in 2021 to three in the first half of 2025.

"We know that the Biden administration used every lever at its disposal to push unlimited abortion and this included policy changes in the military," The National Right to Life (NRTL) told The Dallas Express. "Under the Trump administration, policies pushing abortion have been nullified or reversed."

NRTL explained, “The law is very clear: taxpayer dollars and military facilities cannot be used for elective abortions. When that standard is followed and enforced, it naturally limits the number of abortions performed.”

The Backstory:

After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, the Biden administration allowed abortions to be commited at VA hospitals for the first time. Among other pro-abortion efforts, Biden also enacted an executive order mandating that the Department of Defense (DOD) fund abortion travel for military members.

The Biden administration claimed that pro-life laws enacted after the fall of Roe amounted to a "medical emergency." Dr. Shereef Elnahal, then the VA’s Under Secretary for Health, said the VA must commit abortions and the DOD must fund abortions in order to save women’s lives. Induced abortion — the intentional, targeted killing of a preborn child — is not medically necessary, does not improve maternal mortality or morbidity rates, and is not health care.

At the time, a spokesperson for the VA said the Biden-era policy was “politically motivated. It was estimated that 1,000 abortions would be committed each year under the allowances put into place in 2022; however, there were fewer than 150, according to a VA filing.

After President Trump took office in January and issued an executive order to enforce the Hyde Amendment (which prevents federal funding of certain abortions), the DOD announced it had officially ended Biden's abortion-related travel allowances.

Why It Matters:

According  to Jody Duffy, RN, a former Army officer and military spouse of 35 years, the number of abortions among military women is not fully known. Many pregnant service members or spouses will visit the military medical facility to verify they are pregnant, she explained, but they don't return. Instead, they may go to a local abortion facility or wait until they are on leave to have an abortion near home, making it impossible to know how many abortions actually occur among military women.

It is known that there is a great deal of pressure for women in the military to have abortions and get back to being "good soldiers." In fact, when asked by the press in 2023 why "abortion [is] critical to military readiness," then-White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, “Our policies… whether it’s about female service members — one in five — or female family members being able to count on the kinds of health care and reproductive care specifically that they need to serve, that is a foundational sacred obligation of military leaders.”

In other words, it is erroneously believed that women need to have abortions to fulfill their commitment to the U.S. military.

The rate of unplanned pregnancy in the military is actually higher than the rate of unplanned pregnancy among civilians. According to the pro-abortion group Ibis Reproductive Health, there are about 72 unplanned pregnancies per 1,000 women of reproductive age in the military vs. 45 unplanned pregnancies per 1,000 civilian women.

And like the 64% of women who have had abortions say they felt pressured into it, women in the military are under immense pressure to abort. Bethany Soros became pregnant while stationed in Iraq, and her boyfriend broke up with her when she told him. She didn't want to have an abortion, but also knew she'd have no support.

“One of the stigmas attached to a female getting pregnant on a deployment is the assumption that she did it on purpose,” Saros wrote in an essay for Salon. “It’s whispered about any time the word ‘pregnancy’ comes up right before or during a combat tour. The unspoken code is that a good soldier will have an abortion, continue the mission, and get some sympathy because she chose duty over motherhood. But for the woman who chooses motherhood over duty, well, she must have been trying to get out of deployment.”

Duffy explained that an abortion doesn't fix anything for men or women in the military:

The pain and grief of abortion only adds more stress and conflict to their lives. Whether it is the female soldier not wanting to sacrifice her military career or feeling pressured to fulfill her duty, or the male soldier feeling fatherhood may stand in the way of his mission, sacrificing our unborn children to abortion is an unfortunate and frequent reality of military life. Abortion decisions often involve varying degrees of pressure and conflict. This predisposes them to have more intense post abortion reactions and even trauma.

The Bottom Line:

No federal funding should be used to pay for any abortions or abortion expenses. Allowing it to fund the abortions of specific children is discriminatory.

When women are already facing pressure to abort, the government's offer to pay for the abortion is not a source of relief, but further pressure that helps push a woman into an abortion she doesn't want.