(LifeSiteNews) — Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has pledged to put a hold on all Defense Department nominations over its leadership’s decision to pay leave and travel expenses for troops’ abortions.
“I warned them ‘if you do this, I will hold up every nomination, civilian and flagship officer until you explain to me or retract this policy,’” Tuberville, who serves on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, told Just the News.
“The one thing a senator can do is stop the wheel from turning, and I hate to do it. But they are not allowed, according to the constitution, to change this law themselves without running it through Congress,” Tuberville added.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memo in October in response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, directing the Department of Defense (DOD) to “establish travel and transportation allowances” for “non-covered” abortions, both for “Service members and their dependents,” when they are “unavailable within the local area of a Service member’s permanent duty station.”
Austin also ordered the DOD to make room in its policy for administrative leave for “non-covered” abortions, and called for a program to compensate the legal penalties levied against any DOD health care providers who “appropriately perfor[m] their official duties.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R–TX) slammed the move in a statement to The Daily Signal at the time, saying, “Instead of focusing on national security, taking care of our troops, and defending our way of life, the Biden administration is hell-bent on using taxpayer resources to help kill unborn children.”
The Military Times noted that Austin’s directive seeks to circumvent restrictions which prevent federal money from being used to fund abortions (except in the case of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life), and which prevent military providers from performing such abortions.
Tuberville remarked to Just the News, “What they’re going to do now is they’re going to allow abortion on demand. They’re going to transport the soldier to any state they want to go to and they’re going to allow dependents of that military personnel to have abortions.”
“So we’re going from having 20 a year on average to 4,000 a year just for military personnel and that’s not counting the dependents,” Tuberville added.
The freshman senator said he was initially granted a requested briefing to discuss the policy, but it was later canceled, as he learned the Pentagon was seeking to sidestep federally mandated procedure to facilitate troops’ abortions.
“This unprofessional behavior does not reflect well upon your office or the Department of Defense,” Tuberville wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Defense News reported. “Unfortunately I have come to expect this sort of delay and obfuscation from the Pentagon.”
A staffer from Tuberville’s office told Defense News that the senator will lift his hold after the DOD grants a briefing and “all questions about the policy have been adequately answered.”
At least nine high-ranking DOD nominees currently await a confirmation vote from Congress, including Lester Martinez-Lopez, President Joe Biden’s pick for assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, and Radha Iyengar Plumb, the nominee for Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.