Pro-life organizations urged U.S. House leaders this month to stop the Biden administration from forcing taxpayers to fund abortion travel for military members and their families.
First reported at Fox News, the letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other leading Republicans says Americans want the military to “focus on winning actual wars, not fighting culture wars” and most do not want their tax dollars to fund abortions.
Issued in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, the new Department of Defense policy requires taxpayers to pay for travel and time off for military service members and their families to have elective abortions. If allowed to continue, Republicans estimate the policy will result in approximately 4,100 more unborn babies killed in abortions every year.
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Almost 50 pro-life organizations signed the letter opposing the policy, including the Heritage Foundation, Students for Life Action, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Family Research Council and the American Cornerstone Institute. LifeNews.com editor Steven Ertelt also participated.
They urged McCarthy and House Republicans to rescind the policy through the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a spending bill currently advancing in the House. The pro-life leaders said the policy does nothing to help the military; it’s just another woke policy from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and President Joe Biden.
“Rather than focusing on confronting the serious challenges facing our country, President Biden and Secretary Austin have unnecessarily dragged the military into the middle of a divisive political issue and attempted to co-opt military resources in furtherance of an unrelated, partisan, ideological agenda,” they wrote Thursday.
Here’s more from Fox News:
The House Armed Services Committee passed the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2024 last month, and House Republicans could take up the bill as early as next week. GOP lawmakers filed numerous amendments last week that they hope to be included in the NDAA for 2024.
“… the NDAA is the legislative vehicle to reassert Congress’ authority over policymaking and ensure that our nation’s laws and policies reflect the will of the American people,” the groups wrote in the letter. “Now that the House Armed Services Committee has passed the FY24 NDAA, it is imperative that this policy be fully repealed in any NDAA that passes on the House floor.”
In the U.S. Senate, Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville also has been fighting to stop the pro-abortion policy. For months, Tuberville has blocked Pentagon promotions, saying he will continue until the Biden administration reverses the life-destroying order.
The policy skirts around the long-standing Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for most elective abortions. Rather than fund abortions themselves, the Biden administration policy forces taxpayers to fund travel costs, lodging, paid leave and related expenses for military beneficiaries seeking elective abortions.
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.
Bans on taxpayer funding for elective abortions used to have strong bipartisan support in Congress. Only recently did Democrat leaders abandon the American people on the issue and begin supporting taxpayer funding for elective abortions – a goal of the abortion industry, which spends huge amounts of money on elections.
Thomas Spoehr, Heritage Foundation director at the center for national defense, told Fox News that the policy is about politics, not military preparedness.
“The Pentagon firmly entered the political space when it opted to change policy and start granting paid vacation and funding of travel expenses for service members to obtain abortions,” Spoehr said. “This despite longstanding laws prohibiting federal support for abortions. The NDAA, where Congress provides the annual direction for [the] DoD to operate, is the most appropriate vehicle for Congress to direct the Pentagon to return to its previous policies on abortion.”
The Biden administration has expanded abortions in ways no other president has tried, including the new military policy and another action allowing abortion pills to be sold through the mail without ever seeing a doctor.
Biden also is using Americans’ tax dollars to create a national abortion hotline, and his administration recently began cutting off health care funding for poor Americans in pro-life states because of their laws banning elective abortions.
