Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said his efforts protesting the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy under the Biden administration were worth it now that the “illegal and immoral” practice has been reversed.
The update, which was announced in a Defense Travel Management Office memo, removes paragraph 033013 from the Pentagon's Joint Travel Regulations.
Under the Biden administration, service members were allowed to be reimbursed if they or their dependents needed to travel across state lines to obtain an abortion.
The memo follows President Trump signing an executive order last week on “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment.”
Such access was offered so troops could safely receive needed health care, even if they were based in states where abortion was significantly curtailed following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
The Biden administration pointed to a Defense Department legal memo drafted in October 2022, which found the law “does not prohibit the use of funds to pay expenses, such as a per diem or travel expenses, that are incidental to the abortion.”
Republican opponents, however, attacked the policy as a loophole to evade federal laws that prevented taxpayer funds from being used for abortions.
The issue prompted Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to hold up nonpolitical military promotions for nearly a year to protest the policy. He argued it was a violation of the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition on spending federal funds on abortions. The amendment does, however, allow funding in cases of rape, incest or to save a patient’s life. (The Hill)
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Tuberville said Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "affirmed" what he had been fighting for all along: that taxpayer money should not go toward abortions.
“For the past two years, I have been sounding the alarm about the Pentagon’s illegal and immoral practice of using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions," he said in a statement. "I took a lot of heat when I stood alone for nearly a year in holding senior Pentagon promotions over this—but as of today, it was all worth it. The Biden administration treated taxpayers like their own personal Piggy bank that they could use to bankroll their woke agenda. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth affirmed today what I’ve been fighting for since I got to Washington: zero taxpayer dollars should go towards abortions. Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s leadership, the Pentagon will once again be focused on lethality, not pushing a political agenda. Thank God common sense has been restored to our military under President Trump’s leadership.”
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