Republican senator from Arizona Martha McSally wrote in 2007 that women in the military should be counseled to avoid the “foolishness of entering into a lifetime commitment (motherhood)” to avoid deployment, according to a report from Salon.
In an article titled, Women in Combat: Is the Current Policy Obsolete?, McSally, the first female combat pilot in U.S. history, called on the Pentagon to repeal the policy that allows women to use pregnancy as an excuse to “skirt” their commitment. She also calls for a cultural shift to teach military women that it is “not appropriate” to have a child just because they want to.
“The military must foster a culture in which military women understand that it is not appropriate to get pregnant whenever they desire. Instead, women need to realize their duties take precedence. They must take measures to prevent unplanned pregnancies and plan for pregnancies to occur only when they are in non-deployable situations.”
She later expanded on her article during a lecture at Duke University School of law where she criticized the military’s policy of giving temporary leave to pregnant women. She called the policy “ludicrous” and said servicewomen who want to have children should “go work at Walmart.”
Watch the clip below:
Martha McSally was defeated by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in 2018 for an open seat in Arizona. She was appointed by the state’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey to fill the Senate seat of the late Sen. John McCain. She is up for re-election this year and is currently trailing her Democratic challenger Mark Kelly in the polls.
Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters
