Sen. Tommy Tuberville blocked a move by pro-abortion Senator Elizabeth Warren to approve almost 200 military promotions that Tuberville has held up because the military is illegally funding abortions.
Tuberville opposes a new policy that has the Department of Veterans Affairs paying for abortions for retired service members. He put forward a measure last week to stop the tax-funded abortions but Democrats voted it down.
This week, Warren tried to push forward the nominations that Tuberville is blocking but he renewed the block on the nominations. Warren requested unanimous consent for the Senate to immediately consider Shoshana Chatfield’s confirmation as vice admiral to serve as the U.S. representative to the NATO military committee. but Tuberville renewed his objection and said he would allow the nominations to move forward if the Biden admin would stop funding abortions.
“I warned Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin that if he did this and changed this, I would put a hold on his highest-level nominees,” Tuberville said from the floor. “Secretary Austin went through with the policy anyway in February of this year, so I am keeping my word.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, joined Tuberville in objecting to unanimous consent, preventing the military promotions.
Since 1992, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been statutorily prohibited from using taxpayer dollars for abortion. In September, the Biden administration ignored this longstanding prohibition and issued a new rule that funds abortion for undefined and presumably broad “health” reasons.
“Using our VA medical facilities to provide taxpayer-funded abortions is illegal and wrong,” Tuberville said. “The VA’s new policy is a blatant violation of federal law. It forces taxpayers to fund abortions at VA facilities. And it provides limited conscience protections for doctors and nurses with religious objections to performing abortions.”
Tuberville introduced the resolution under the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress the authority to review major rules issued by federal agencies. He said in a separated news conference prior to voting that the VA’s new rule is an abuse of the law that forces taxpayers to fund abortions.
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The resolution has 34 Republican co-sponsors in the Senate and one Democratic co-sponsor, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V. More than 50 House members also co-sponsored the bill.
Susan B. Anthony Pro Life-America, March for Life, National Right to Life, Catholic Vote, Heritage Action, and Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee endorsed the legislation.
“The Biden administration will stop at nothing to impose abortion on demand until birth nationwide, even violating state and federal laws to do so. Instead of providing our veterans with compassionate care and help, they are using taxpayer dollars to turn VA hospitals into abortion centers, even in states that have pro-life laws on the books,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “The strong majority of Americans do not want their taxpayer dollars to fund the destruction of unborn children. Instead of listening to the will of the people and upholding current laws, Biden works with the abortion lobby to impose their radical pro-abortion agenda nationwide. We will continue to expose this extremism and hold them accountable to the American people.”
But Democrats support abortions up to birth and paid for at taxpayer expense and they call killing babies in abortions “reproductive health care” even through funding abortions is not health care and reproduction has already taken place.
“The hard right is telling our veterans that they’ll be treated as second-class citizens, and we say no way,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a news conference before the Wednesday afternoon vote. “Despite everything our veterans have given to our country, it’s outrageous. It’s wrong. It’s dangerous, and it ain’t going to happen.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs said it plans to kill babies in abortions in cases of rape or incest or in cases where the mother’s life or health is in danger, even though doctors repeatedly say abortions are never medically necessary.
For the past few weeks, Tuberville has been boldly standing up for unborn babies and American taxpayers by blocking Pentagon nominees until the Biden administration reverses the pro-abortion policy.
The new department policy requires taxpayers to pay travel costs and paid time off for military service members and their families to abort their unborn babies. As a result, approximately 4,1000 more unborn babies could be killed in abortions every year, Republican lawmakers said.
Republican lawmakers say the policy clearly violates Title 10 Section 1093 of the U.S. Code, which states that “funds available to the Department of Defense may not be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.”
Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, agrees and is calling for the Biden administration to end the pro-abortion policy. Lee said that if the Department of Defense is so concerned about getting nominees approved that Senator Tuberville and others are blocking it would rescind the policy immediately.
“I suspect if the Department of Defense wanted to really stand behind that, they could offer to suspend this regulation that they’ve issued this — policy memorandum they issued on Feb. 16,” he said.
Lee added: “Suspend that until such time as we can debate it, discuss it, and work on it in the NDAA. Look, let this be a message to Secretary Austin. If you want to make the laws, run for Congress, but you can’t legislate from the E-ring at the Pentagon. You cannot do that. Until then, stand down, and leave the lawmaking to lawmakers.”
Tuberville, for his part, is not backing down on blocking DOD nominees over the pro-abortion policy and forcing the Senate to approve them in a very slow one by one fashion instead of as a slate like normal.
“Sen. Schumer and some of the other senators have claimed that my hold on these nominees is unprecedented. Well, it’s not. My hold is far from unprecedented,” he said. “In fact, Sen. Bennet himself threatened to do the exact same thing just a few months ago. Why? Because the Air Force’s planned to move Space Command from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama. … Two years ago, we had a senator from Illinois put a hold on 1,000 nominees over the promotion of one single officer. So far, my hold has affected 184 nominations.”
“Democrats are in a panic about 184 promotions for generals and officers. Yet I have not heard a word from them about the 15,000 enlisted soldiers we’re missing right now from last year’s recruiting class. That’s an entire division,” he continued. “There’s another 8,600 who were discharged over the President’s vaccine mandate. Kicked out. I don’t hear a word about them from the Democrats. So, the military is down 23,000 enlisted soldiers due to the actions of the Biden administration and his secretary of defense just this past year. Yet Democrats are worried about 184 generals getting their promotions? Only one of those things threatens our security. It is not the officer promotions.”
Responding to this, a VA nurse in Texas has filed a lawsuit against the administration, saying she doesn’t want to have to work at a hospital that also kills babies in abortions and could require her to assist in or promote abortions.
Recently, U.S. House Republicans introduced legislation to reverse the order and strengthen the law that bans taxpayer funding for abortions in the military.
Polls consistently show strong public opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions. A new Marist poll found 60 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in the U.S. Additionally, 78 percent oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in other countries.
In February, LifeNews published a list of 25 recent polls that show Americans support legal protections for unborn babies.
