Former secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force as well as former high-ranking military service members say that restricting access to mifepristone, the medication used in more than half of all medical abortions in the U.S., would hurt recruitment, military readiness and cause undue harm to national security.
In a brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of oral arguments March 26 in a case challenging the availability of the drug, former secretaries Louis Caldera of the Army, Ray Mabus of the Navy and Deborah James of the Air Force urged the court to reject any move to limit its access. The three secretaries all served under Democratic administrations.
At issue in the case is a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s long-standing approval of the drug and federal judicial rulings on prescriptions for it and access to it by telemedicine or mail. The case is also part of a larger legal and political fight in the U.S. over abortion access after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, and unleashed a struggle in the courts — also between Republicans and Democrats — as states have legislated their own rules and restrictions on abortion.
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The secretaries, joined by retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy — the Army’s first female three-star officer — and others, including the Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit veterans advocacy…
