“I’m over there defending my country, and they won’t even take care of my family?”

My patient Carol was excited to give birth to her first child. Her husband was a Marine serving in Afghanistan. Sadly, in her second trimester, Carol learned that her baby had a lethal anomaly. She and her husband made the difficult decision to have an abortion. That’s when they learned that the military health insurance they relied on wouldn’t cover the abortion unless Carol’s life was in danger. Her husband was outraged. He had just flown back from Afghanistan to be with her, and he angrily said to me, “I’m over there defending my country, and they won’t even take care of my family?”