This is a somewhat old story, but in light of the recent controversy over the new submarine policy, it appears relevant. In December, Major General Anthony Cucolo issued an order to his soldiers to refrain from getting pregnant or impregnating other soldiers. Pregnancies have been an issue in Iraq, with a woman under Cucolo’s command getting pregnant in Iraq every couple weeks, and a roughly equal number of women getting pregnant immediately before deployment and having to be sent home upon discovery of the fact. Because 1,682 women are under Cucolo’s command, the pregnancy rate would work out to over 3% per year, which is significant, if not crippling.
Some of the pregnancies are a result of adultery and fraternization, both of which are crimes in the military, so the pregnancies have an effect that goes beyond the female soldier who must be sent home. Fortunately for the Army, women can be sent home individually.
However, this is relevant to the submarine issue, because if a submarine had only 10 women onboard, and the pregnancy rate was the same as it is among Cucolo’s troops, a half year deployment would stand roughly a one in six chance of being interrupted by a pregnancy, meaning that for every six subs deployed, one would have to either steam home or surface to evacuate an impregnated crew member. If half of a sub’s crew were female, interruption due to pregnancy would become highly probable on each mission. Imagine what that would do for national security to have multibillion dollar vessels, equipped with ballistic missiles, devoted mainly to ferrying pregnant women around the high seas.
Nevertheless, four female senators, including Barbara Boxer of California, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, wrote a letter to General Cucolo, excoriating him for the order banning pregnancies. Of course, NOW butted in as well, with President Terry O’Neill chiding Cucolo, saying “How dare any government say we’re going to impose any kind of punishment on women for getting pregnant.”
It is instructive to note that the women complaining about the policy aren’t concerned about combat effectiveness, but rather that the policy is “demeaning” and restrictive. It certainly does raise the question of whether the United States can – or should – maintain its status as a global power when feminist concerns about the self-esteem of female soldiers take priority over matters of war at the highest levels of government.
