Just days after taking office a little over a year ago, Obama checked off an item that had long been on the pro-choice community’s to-do list when he repealed the so-called Mexico City policy prohibiting foreign family planning groups from receiving U.S. funds if they provided abortions or even referred patients for abortions.
On Thursday, the Obama administration continued further down the list. The Pentagon announced that it will stock the morning-after pill Plan B at military hospitals and clinics. Those facilities are still prohibited from providing abortions (except in the case of rape, incest or to save the woman’s life) and military health plans do not cover abortion procedures. But this development, which came after a Pentagon advisory committee voted to add morning-after pills to the list of pharmaceuticals that military facilities should stock, is being cheered by pro-choice groups as a victory for the more than 300,000 women who rely on U.S. military health care worldwide.