Real Clear Policy
Op-Ed: Not Enough Abortions?
By Marjorie Dannenfelser & Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith
When Americans think about supporting U.S. troops, they usually think about servicemembers with difficult deployments far from their families. Or wounded veterans in need of health care, jobs, or homes. You know what doesn’t top the list? Abortion. “Not enough abortions” probably never crosses their minds as a problem that needs solving, much less at taxpayer expense.
At this very moment, unbeknownst to many Americans, the Biden administration is using our tax dollars to pay travel expenses for elective abortions – and not only for servicemembers, but for their kids, spouses, and other dependents. This isn’t just a brazen moral affront to hardworking Americans, it is also illegal. At this pace, it is estimated to lead to an increase of more than 4,000 unborn children killed in abortions each year.
Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is doing all Americans who value life a great service by exposing this scheme and vowing to put a hold on promotions at the Pentagon until it stops. Senator Tuberville is not alone. A majority Americans and many colleagues in the Senate and House support his effort to hold the Biden administration accountable to the law and the people.
Americans have made it clear repeatedly that they abhor their tax dollars going to fund abortions. The latest annual Marist poll shows 60% of Americans – millions of Independents and rank-and-file Democrats included – oppose using tax dollars to fund abortion domestically, and 78% oppose using tax dollars to fund abortion abroad.
The people’s will is expressed in our federal laws and in bills that Congress votes on year after year. The most familiar is the longstanding Hyde Amendment, which saves millions of lives by keeping taxpayer-funded abortion out of programs like Medicaid and has been reapproved annually in larger bills supported by Democrats. In addition, the Defense Department specifically has been prohibited in permanent law from paying for elective abortions for nearly 40 years.
Pro-abortion Democrats have failed to get rid of these critical protections through legislation, so the Biden administration is resorting to violating federal law to bypass them and impose an agenda that would never fly at the ballot box.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the pro-abortion media accuse Senator Tuberville of impairing military readiness. But the truth is that Senate Democrats don’t need Senator Tuberville’s help to move personnel appointments forward – they simply complain that he is not helping fast-track them. The issue he raises is not frivolous, it is one of life or death.
Democrats also complain that service members don’t have enough access to abortion on demand. With a handful of exceptions like North Korea and China, virtually the entire world – including most of Europe – has stronger national protections for unborn children than the United States. Clearly, this has never ground our military to a halt.
Only when the U.S. Supreme Court returned the right to protect unborn children and their mothers to the people and their elected representatives, and more than a dozen states moved swiftly to let the people’s consensus become law, did this become a political maneuver for Democrats to appease its radical, angry base.
We are grateful for all those who are already making their voices heard, and we hope others who have not yet joined in will soon add theirs. The GOP’s long tradition of standing for life is a great strength and there is growing support in Congress to block this administration’s lawless abortion policies for our military, including Iowa Senator Joni Ernst’s bill to do just that. Sadly, Senate Democrats have insisted on promoting abortion on demand until birth, paid for by the taxpayers, and stonewalled Senator Ernst’s legislation, rather than allow any debate.
What is more important: that Majority Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats spend less time on the Senate floor approving military promotions and nominations, or that the most vulnerable and defenseless of American lives are protected from President Biden’s lawlessness?
The time is now to hold the Biden administration accountable for its illegal policies that have conscripted our military into facilitating the violence of abortion. We are proud to stand with Senator Tuberville, Senator Ernst, and others in fighting back. Together we will not back down.
Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is the U.S. Senator from Mississippi.