Marine Corps, Navy Assure Women Jobs Won’t Suffer Over Pregnancy

The Navy and Marine Corps unveiled a policy Tuesday designed to ensure that women who become pregnant on active duty do not suffer career setbacks for taking time out from sea duty or hazardous assignments.

Navy Secretary John H. Dalton ordered that women who become pregnant while at sea be assigned to similar first-line billets after their maternity leave, and he forbade commanders from using pregnancy as a basis for lowering marks on performance reports.

“Navy leadership recognizes that pregnancy is a natural event that can occur in the lives of Navy and Marine Corps servicewomen and is not a presumption of medical incapacity,” Dalton wrote. “Pregnancy and parenthood are compatible with a naval career.”

Tuesday’s decision effectively rejects suggestions by some commanders that the two services prohibit female officers and enlistees from going to sea while they are pregnant and that they take disciplinary action against women who become pregnant while at sea.

Under existing regulations, which Dalton’s decision will not change, the Navy allows women to remain assigned to ships through the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, but it has prohibited them from being deployed overseas.

The Marine Corps, however, has insisted that pregnant women be transferred off ships as soon as they learn they are pregnant.

Dalton also decreed that the Navy and Marine Corps should provide women with more family planning information.

The policy, outlined in a four-page order distributed to all installations Monday, followed a yearlong effort by Navy officials to deal with the emerging controversy.

Last week, the Navy transferred five sailors off the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower because they became pregnant. The Eisenhower was the first U.S. combat vessel to go to sea with women as a permanent part of its crew.