General: No court-martial for pregnancy

BAGHDAD, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- A U.S. Army general in Iraq who called for court-martialing female soldiers who got pregnant said he would not jail a soldier for pregnancy, ABC News reported.

"I regret that the term 'court-martial' is bandied about or mentioned," Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III said Tuesday. "I do not ever see myself putting a soldier in jail for this."

Cucolo's policy, written last month and made public recently, drew criticism from, among others, the National Organization for Women.

Pregnancy, the policy said, could result in court-martial for female soldiers as well as the men who get them pregnant, even if the couple were married, ABC reported Tuesday.

Pregnant women are redeployed out of combat zones to get medical care and that could leave a unit shorthanded, the general had argued.

"The true purpose behind this is to cause them to pause and think about, 'OK, wait a minute. It was written in the order and I'm going to leave my team. I'm going to leave an outfit shorthanded,'" said Cucolo, commander of coalition forces in Iraq's northern region.

Some legal and military experts said the policy was appropriate but NOW called it "ridiculous."

"How dare any government say we're going to impose any kind of punishment on women for getting pregnant," NOW President Terry O'Neill said before Cucolo backed off on the court-martial threat. "This is not the 1800s."

In the eight weeks the policy had been in force, Cucolo said, four women soldiers were redeployed because they had become pregnant. Those four women, as well as three male soldiers, got letters of reprimand for violating the policy, but the letters will not remain in their permanent files, Cucolo said.