Researcher Caitlin Gerdts planned to release a new study about abortion access for active-duty military service members, much like the one in 2019 that was published with input from 323 participants.

But over a six-month period in 2024, in a new legal environment for abortion access, the research team was only able to find three service members who agreed to participate, even though their identities would be kept secret. With that few people, a study couldn’t be completed, and the group published an analytical essay instead.

“It makes sense that this is a particularly difficult moment,” said Gerdts, vice president for research at international nonprofit Ibis Reproductive Health.

Researchers say it’s important to understand what kinds of barriers active-duty service members are facing when living in any state—especially in states with strict abortion bans. But those who spoke with Stateline said it is becoming increasingly difficult to access that population because of chilling effects around state laws, the actions of the U.S. Department of Defense under its current leadership, and factors specific to the military that existed long before federal abortion protections were overturned.

The Department of Defense did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment before publication.

In many cases, research on abortion generally focuses on providers, especially with studies that involve interviews. But among organizations that talk often with civilian patients—including Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco—researchers told Stateline they haven’t experienced the same problems with recruitment that Gerdts described, suggesting the issue is specific to the military.

As of 2021, there were more than 230,000 women in active-duty roles in the U.S. military, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, and 95 percent are of reproductive age, between 18 and 44. The RAND Corporation found in 2022 that about 40 percent of women on active duty are in states with severely limited access to abortion or no access at all, including military-heavy states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas.

Kristen Jozkowski, senior scientist at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, said not being able to gather data from a specific population can make it more difficult to help them.

“As a researcher and behavioral scientist, I think it is an issue when we cannot get access to any population, particularly ones who may be unique or at increased risk of something,” Jozkowski said. “It limits our ability to grow knowledge as a society and make empirically informed decisions and recommendations.”

After Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assumed........

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