Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Now Accepting Single Parents and Pregnant Women

Recently this year, the United States Air Force has changed a few policies, and are now allowing single parents and pregnant women to join the Air Force. The Air Force wants to attract more higher qualified people to join and by allowing more people that were once disqualified, to now be able to have a chance to be apart of the Air Force. Trainees will also now be allowed to return to their programs after pregnancy, also receiving medical clearance. ROTC cadets can be commissioned and begin to follow-on training once they are cleared by a medical authority, the Air Force said.

"Air Force spokeswoman Laurel Tingley said the case of Rebecca Edmonds, an aspiring nurse who was kicked out of the Air Force in 2011 when she became pregnant before being commissioned as an officer, prompted the service to re-examine its rules." (OTB)

"Edmonds discovered she was pregnant in March 2011, a few weeks before her graduation, her attorney, Daniel Conway, said. She was commissioned that July and reported to her nursing transition orientation program, where she reported her pregnancy. Soon afterward, Air Force ROTC began investigating her, concluded she was fraudulently commissioned, and summarily discharged her as an airman basic. The Air Force also billed her about $90,000 for her scholarship." (OTB)

But some still do not feel like single mothers should be serving in the Air Force.

"Over 40 years ago,
Captain Susan Struck became pregnant while serving with the Air Force in Vietnam. Her superiors told her that if she wanted to stay in the service, she’d need to get an abortion, despite the fact that she had planned to use her accumulated leave for the birth and had made arrangements to give the child up for adoption with the goal of staying in the Air Force. She refused, providing her right to privacy." (xojane)

This policy actually makes a lot of sense to me. I like the fact that the Air Force is not discriminating against anybody and even allowing these women to have a second chance to do the career they really want. It's important that they follow through with this policy and continue on with it. It just gives hope to more women and can put an end to their doubt.

Work Cited:

Joyner James. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/air-force-now-accepting-single-parents-pregnant-women/
Pratt Jane. http://www.xojane.com/issues/the-air-force-doesnt-want-single-mothers



 

1 comment:

  1. When using sources academically, the best in-text citation is the last name of the source versus the initials of the title. So (OTB) would be come (Joyner). See the difference? And for those Works Cited entries, add title of the page, access dates, medium, etc. per MLA style.

    I like this post, and I find it very interesting as it happened to my mom, who got married while overseas during the Vietnam conflict and she had to get an honorable discharge once she got pregnant with my sister.

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