KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, AFGHANISTAN - While some of the hardest jobs on deployment fall on the men and women of the medical profession, the job of Lt. Col. Jennifer Dalten is a particularly difficult one. As the commanding officer of the 115th Mobile Abortion Detachment, the only deployable abortion facility in the US Army, it falls on her to ensure that America’s fighting women can receive safe and timely access to abortions in combat zones and stay in the fight.

“I’d say on a given week we’re usually performing between fifteen to twenty abortions. More if we’re on Air Status Red and there’s nothing else to do on the FOB,” said Dalten. “Last week we actually went on a cordon-and-search operation and while the infantry were searching houses, we were providing discrete abortions for the local women as a service to the host nation. You know, in this part of the world their only usual access to abortions comes from coat hangers, jumping on IEDs, and honor killings.”

The 115th was set up in early 2010 in response to the increasing problems of servicewomen getting pregnant on deployments.

“We were constantly conducting emergency medical evacuations of female soldiers in labor,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, the former commander of the 3rd Infantry Division. In response to the increasing number of babies being born to deployed females, Cucolo put out an emergency request to the Army for a mobile abortion detachment.