Senator Slams Biden Admin Plan to Have Defense Department Fund More Abortions

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Dec 12, 2022   |   4:30PM   |   Washington, DC

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, warned the Biden administration Friday against making an illegal policy change that would force taxpayers to pay for the killing of unborn babies in abortions in the U.S. military.

Federal law prohibits taxpayer funding for elective abortions in the military, Medicaid and other federal programs. In October, however, the Biden administration released proposed policy changes for the U.S. Department of Defense that would violate federal abortion limits, Tuberville said.

“[W]e uncovered [Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin]’s plan to fund thousands of abortions a year,” he wrote Friday on Twitter. “Not only is this a severe misuse of taxpayer dollars, it’s illegal. I will hold him accountable.”

In a letter to Austin, Tuberville referenced an Oct. 20 memo directing the Department of Defense to find ways to increase access to “reproductive health care.” He said the secretary’s plan would subsidize up to 4,100 abortions every year for military members and likely thousands more for dependents who are covered under military health care plans.

The policy change even would cover late-term abortions in states where the “morally repugnant” practice is legal, Tuberville continued.

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He reminded Austin that the law prohibits taxpayer-funded abortions in the military. The only exceptions are for cases of rape, incest or threats to the mother’s life, of which the average has been less than 20 per year within the department, he continued.

“If Secretary Austin wants to change the law, he should do it through Congress. But he’s going around Congress to enact a taxpayer-funded abortion policy – including late term abortions,” Tuberville said. “Americans want a strong military focused on keeping them safe, but the Department of Defense leadership is distracted by radical liberal priorities.”

Tuberville said the policy is illegal and immoral, and promised to place a hold on all future civilian and general/flag officer nominations if Austin implements it at the end of the year, as planned.

In October, Austin released a memo to all branches of the military to raise awareness of the new DOD policy to fund abortion travel.

He said the reversal of Roe v. Wade has “readiness, recruiting, and retention implications for the force,” and called for the military to “establish travel and transportation allowances for service members and dependents … to access non-covered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a service member’s permanent duty station.”

Austin said the new policy came after reviewing “current policies and procedures to assess the impact of the Dobbs decision.”

However, along with violating federal limits on taxpayer funding for abortions, concerns also are being raised that the policy will put a burden on pregnant service members to have abortions. Instead of giving birth, military service members could feel obligated or pressured to abort their unborn babies because the child supposedly adversely affects military “readiness.”

Current law in effect since 1996 prohibits the performance of elective abortions by Department of Defense medical personnel and medical facilities. The Hyde Amendment also prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions in the military, with exceptions for cases of rape, incest or risks to the mother’s life.

Pro-abortion Democrat lawmakers have been trying to require military base medical facilities to provide elective abortions for decades.

When former President Bill Clinton allowed abortions in military facilities from 1993 to 1996, military physicians, nurses and other medical workers refused to perform or assist in elective abortions. Before the current law went into effect, the Clinton administration attempted to hire civilians to do abortions on military bases.

Killing unborn babies in abortions is not health care, and military servicewomen do not need them. Most OB-GYNs do not provide abortions, and tens of thousands of doctors across the U.S. recognize that unborn babies are second patients in every pregnancy and their lives are valuable.