‘GO WORK AT WALMART’

Arizona Sen. Martha McSally Once Said Military Women Get Pregnant to Dodge Deployment

Martha McSally, the first woman Air Force combat pilot, argued in a 2007 article that the Pentagon should change its policy about pregnant women.

Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) wrote in a 2007 academic paper that women in the military should be counseled to avoid the “foolishness of entering into a lifetime commitment (motherhood)” to dodge deployment, calling on the Pentagon to change the policy that would allow pregnant women to “skirt” deployment. McSally’s article, called Women in Combat: Is the Current Policy Obsolete?, was published in the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy and was the subject of a later lecture at Duke University School of Law. McSally expanded on the article in her lecture, suggesting that women should “go work at Walmart” if they want to have children. McSally, who lost the Senate election in 2018 but was appointed by Gov. Doug Ducey to fill the late Sen. John McCain’s seat, is up for re-election in 2020. She faces Democrat Mark Kelly, who has consistently beaten her in polls and is the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.