There are no firm boundaries regarding what issues should be considered national security threats. Certain issues—such as terrorism, foreign relations, espionage, the military, and intelligence—are widely accepted to fall under the traditional umbrella of “national security issues.” However, that traditional definition has expanded in recent years. For example, due to its massive impact on infrastructure, weather, food, and public health, climate change has generally come to be acknowledged as a core component to national security. Given that this definition is somewhat blurred, it is worth exploring other issues—particularly that of abortion access—and determining whether or not they should be included in definitions of national security threats.
Depending on how you define national security, a country’s policy toward abortion access, depending on its effects on that country’s population, should potentially be included in a country’s list of national security issues. A wider definition of national security states that it is simply the ability of a nation to protect its citizens; this definition could be interpreted to include protection from bodily harm, protection of personal autonomy, and safety. Defining something—or not—as a national security issue is important because it brings attention to the saliency and potential danger of that issue. A definition too wide could cause the phrase “national security” to become altogether meaningless, whereas a definition too narrow could cause major issues to be overlooked simply because they lack the national security label. Issues such as abortion access are generally not included under the umbrella of national security. However, due to the potential harm to countries’ citizens which could result from certain abortion policies, this is an issue worth including in the conversation. One major example of a state in which abortion constitutes a genuine national security issue is Madagascar.
Madagascar currently has a very restrictive abortion policy regime—and the consequences of these policies on its own citizens are large. Madagascar is described as having one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Africa, prohibiting abortion access in all cases. However, as in many cases of restricted abortion access or the criminalization of abortion, these laws do not stop the citizens of Madagascar from seeking abortions, and the situation is becoming more and more unsafe.
Multiple national and international political factors have led to Madagascar’s current abortion crisis, and the United States played a major role. Shortly after the January 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump in the United States, Trump reinstated a policy called “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.” As an extension of Trump’s own national policy toward abortion, this policy placed a condition upon international NGO recipients of U.S. funding; they were legally no longer able to perform abortions. This policy, also known as the “Global Gag Rule,” forces NGOs to choose between U.S. funding and the right for their citizens to legally access abortions. Thus, given that Madagascar is highly dependent on donor funding from the U.S., this policy resulted in very restrictive abortion laws in Madagascar which criminalize abortion (and assisting abortion) in virtually all cases—making Madagascar one of the only countries in the world with a total ban on abortions.
However, despite Madagascar’s sweeping abortion ban, the amount of unwanted pregnancies ending in abortion rose. Due to their illegality, this statistic indicates that a vast number of abortions in Madagascar are being performed under unprofessional, unsafe conditions. This presents a public health problem due to the severe health consequences that unsafe abortions can have for the women who must undergo them—including things like severe disability, heavy bleeding, damage to internal organs, or even death. With many women dying from unsafe abortion as a result of these restrictive abortion policies, this issue certainly presents a health crisis for the women of Madagascar, and it threatens their safety.
Madagascar serves as just one example of the potential for restrictive and punitive abortion laws to cause major public health issues within a country. In discussions of an issue which impacts the health and safety of so many of a nation’s citizens, including such a public health crisis under the umbrella of “national security” would help to bring attention and urgency to the situation; however, an excessive expansion of what it means to be a “national security concern” could result in decreased priority for the issues of the highest and most immediate concern.
Thus, it is critical to strike the right balance in terms of what issues should be labeled as falling into the realm of national security—in order to strike this balance, crises relating to things like abortion access should be considered when discussing these boundaries. If we define national security to mean the ability of a nation to protect its citizens from harm, then we ought to consider including major public health issues such as abortion access within the conversations surrounding the blurred boundaries of what defines national security.
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