Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis blasted Joe Biden’s abortion tourism in a new interview. The Florida governor said he supports Senator Tommy Tuberville’s battle against the mandate.
During the interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, DeSantis said he supports Tuberville’s hold on promotions for military officers over the Pentagon’s abortion policy forcing Americans to fund abortion travel.
DeSantis said that, if he is elected president, he will scrap Biden’s pro-abortion policy.
“No, I don’t,” DeSantis said when asked if Tuberville should back down from fighting for pro-life Americans.
“And the reason is, the military’s policy is not following U.S. law. They are using tax dollars. They’re funding abortion tourism, which is not an appropriate thing for the military to be doing,: DeSantis added.
“Our group of Republicans in the Congress should just take a stand on this,” he continued. “The [Department of Defense] should stand down. We have all these other problems in our military. We need more ammunition, we need more recruiting, we need all these other things and yet they’re focusing on abortion tourism.”
DeSantis said that, on day one of his administration, the policy “will go out the window.”
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His comments come a couple days after the House passed the defense funding bill that ends Joe Biden’s potentially illegal policy that forces Americans to fund abortion travel for members of the military.
House Republicans successfully added an amendment to a defense spending bill to block the policy. Today the $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024 passed by a bipartisan vote of 219-210, with four Republicans voting no and four Democrats voting yes. Three Republicans and two Democrats didn’t vote.
The national defense bill now goes to the Senate, where Democrats strongly oppose the pro-life provision. Whether the Senate passes the bill, tries to amend out the pro-life provision or approves its own version remains to be seen.
Unpopular and likely illegal, the Biden policy requires taxpayers to fund travel costs and paid time off for military service members and their families to abort their unborn babies in elective abortions. As a result, Republican leaders estimate 4,100 more unborn babies could be killed in abortions every year.
In response, House Republicans succeeded in passing the Jackson-Roy amendment to the NDAA.
The House voted 221-213 and 222-210 in favor of amendments to the NDAA to ban the Pentagon from paying for expenses related to killing unborn babies and from funding gender transition procedures
“My amendment to stop Biden from using the DOD to pay for abortion travel passed This policy is illegal, and soon, it will be gone. This is a great day for our country,” said pro-life Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson after the vote.
Jackson said Thursday that the pro-life amendment “will halt the Biden administration’s illegal and immoral abortion policy” for members of the armed forces and their families.
“Taxpayer funding of travel for an abortion is in fact taxpayer-funded abortion, and this administration has been enacting policies across the government in clear violation of the law,” Jackson said. “The Biden administration has sidestepped existing statute and given the [Defense] Department permission to take this illegal course of action. This has left House Republicans with no choice but to take corrective measures and pass additional legislation.”
Leading pro-life groups also celebrated the vote which comes at a time when pro-life Senator Tommy Tuberville is blocking military nominees in an effort to get the polic canceled.
“We praise House GOP leadership for their work in preventing taxpayer funds from illegally being used to pay for or reimburse expenses related to abortion travel,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “The Biden Administration has shown repeatedly that it thinks taxpayers are a never-ending source of funds for its abortion agenda.”
Continued Tobias, “The Jackson Amendment in the NDAA prevents the Biden Administration from circumventing established law.”
Federal law (10 U.S.C. § 1093) has long prevented the Department of Defense (DOD) from using funds to perform elective abortions and prevented the DOD from using its facilities to provide abortions. On October 20, 2022, the Biden Administration’s DOD published a memorandum directing the DOD to pay the travel and transportation costs for military members and dependents who travel to obtain elective abortions.
The federal prohibition against DOD funding of elective abortion clearly extends to funding for any item related to abortion, such as travel and transportation, which has been the case for the entire life of the funding prohibition.
The Jackson Amendment:
- Clarifies and explains federal law (10 U.S.C. § 1093) that prevents DOD funding from being used to perform elective abortions and prohibits DOD facilities from being used to provide abortions.
- Repeals the October 20, 2022 memorandum.
- Amends federal law to clarify that the DOD may not pay for the licensure of healthcare professionals in a state if the purpose is to provide abortions.
“Today the House took a powerful step toward reining in Biden’s illegal policy of taxpayer-funded abortion travel at the Department of Defense,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Representatives Jackson and Roy have courageously led the charge to force the administration to follow the four decades old law against taxpayer funding for abortion at the DOD. Now the House must send the Jackson-Roy amendment in the NDAA to the Senate, and then on to the president’s desk. We also applaud Speaker McCarthy, Leader Scalise, Chairman Rogers and Subcommittee Chairman Banks for their work to curtail this administration’s funding for brutal, painful 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.
