Mom, the Cadet

At the Air Academy, pregnancy is okay, but not marriage

Score a minor military victory for women. The Air Force ruled last week that pregnant cadets no longer need resign, or face expulsion from the Air Force Academy. They may simply go on "excess leave," without pay or allowances. The junior service concluded that they deserve the "equal protection" guaranteed any other cadet burdened with "temporary conditions that preclude participation in training." Like anyone with an incapacitating illness, a pregnant cadet may return to the academy's Colorado Springs campus when her "temporary condition" no longer exists. But she may not bring the baby along with her (women on active duty in any of the services may remain, if, after they become mothers, they can perform their military jobs).

The Air Force ruling reflects a progressivism that is not shared by the older services. Spokesmen at both the Army and Navy academies insist they have no intention of changing their policies. They argue that they already guarantee equality, if not exactly protection, by requiring anyone, man or woman, to resign if he or she is responsible for a pregnancy. They add that the issue is, well, academic. Since the three service academies first admitted women in early 1976, only one woman has resigned--from the Air Force Academy--because she was expecting a baby. Two men quit the Naval Academy this year to marry their pregnant fiancees--who were not midshipmen. (The Navy has yet to adopt the term midshipwoman for the distaff side.)

The Air Force ruling did not totally solve a pregnant cadet's problems. The woman still has to go away--on her "excess leave"--for an abortion. And while a cadet may have her baby if she chooses, she cannot marry until she has graduated. Motherhood, said the Air Force, is not sufficient cause to amend the traditional ban on marriage in all the service academies. Explained one Pentagon lawyer, perhaps too hastily: pregnancy is temporary but marriage is permanent.

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