Role Of Women In Iraq

U.S. military's abortion policy is out of date

More than 255,000 women have served in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-one percent of the 2011 graduating class of sailors at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis were women; of the Marines, 17 percent. The Air Force Academy and West Point graduated similar percentages: nearly 20 percent and more than 16 percent, respectively. All told, women account for nearly 15 percent of active-duty military and National Guard troops, and nearly 20 percent of the reserves of all branches.

Such numbers should be celebrated as evidence of our nation's and our military's progress. Our servicewomen play an integral role in our military operations. I know that from my own service as a naval flight officer in the 1960s and from my tenure as assistant secretary of Defense for manpower in the Reagan administration. In 1983, President Reagan was under pressure from people such as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly to cut the number of women in the military. What I told him is as true now as it was then: "We couldn't go to war without them, and we couldn't win it without them."

The Department of Defense, however, has been slow to adapt its institutional culture to the military's changing demographics. Antiquated and ideological statutory restrictions related to women's reproductive healthcare are emblematic of this tension.

Under current law, the government's military healthcare program denies coverage of abortion care for servicewomen unless their lives are endangered by the pregnancy. The current ban even denies coverage to women who have been raped. In the case of rape, a woman may obtain an abortion at a military medical facility if she is willing to pay with private funds. In all other circumstances, servicewomen cannot obtain an abortion at a military medical facility, even if they are willing to pay with private funds.

The issue of abortion coverage is especially important because the incidence of sexual violence in the armed services persists. Despite the Pentagon's no-tolerance policy toward sexual assault, more than 3,000 cases were reported last year. The overwhelming majority of victims were women under the age of 25 and from junior enlisted ranks. In fact, the actual rates of assault are estimated to be at least four times higher because women often do not report such abuse out of concern that it could negatively affect or even destroy their careers.

The lack of abortion coverage is grossly unfair not least because U.S. servicewomen are uniquely denied coverage in cases of rape. Other federal employees and civilian women who obtain their healthcare through federal programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, Indian Health Services and the federal prisons all receive abortion coverage in cases of rape.

Hamdia's Research < Killing the Buddha

As we waited outside Hamdia al-Hussaini’s office in Baghdad, my Iraqi translator reminded me that I shouldn’t try to shake her hand. The woman who administered Iraq’s 2010 elections is a devout Muslim and wouldn’t want to be touched by a man. I couldn’t help but wonder how such a duteous follower could possibly referee the country’s gladiatorial politics, though I knew she had done just that.

Men dominate Iraqi society. If you ask a man for his full name, for example, he will recite his given name, then his father’s name, then his grandfather’s name, and so on back through the generations. An Iraqi name is a family tree, and even a woman’s contains only the male branches. This patriarchal culture is also reflected in the political structure, which is a pyramid-shaped hierarchy of patronage. Hussaini, however, managed to find her way to the top of it.

Opening her office door, she invited us in with a gentle sweep of her arm. She was shaped like a round matryoshka doll, with a dark abaya draped over her figure and a flowery headscarf framing her pink cheeks. My translator and I sat down at either side of her desk. She sat across from us, folded her hands on the desk, and leaned forward in a posture of polite interest.

“You didn’t wish me a happy Women’s Day,” she said. Her voice was an unwavering soft soprano. My translator repeated the admonishment.

I hadn’t realized it was International Women’s Day. My mother would not be pleased. I could imagine her chiding my oversight in a playfully passive-aggressive tone not unlike Hussaini’s.

“Happy Women’s Day,” I said.

“You are the first man to wish me a happy Women’s Day today,” Hussaini replied. “Now, what would you like to talk about?”

I was interviewing her for an article about Iraqi politics, and the conversation focused on the previous year’s election, which had been certified by international monitors as free and fair. Hussaini was the most senior member of the nine-member commission and held direct responsibility for administering all aspects of the national vote. We spoke for 45 minutes about all the things that made her success nearly impossible.

For starters, there are no voter rolls in Iraq. If you’re running an election anywhere else in the world, you ask your interior ministry for its database. In Iraq, however, the memories of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal gerrymandering are still fresh, and even a simple census threatens to destabilize the country’s ethnic fault lines. Given no definitive roster of citizens, Hussaini’s commission had to make its own.

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