Pentagon Will Pay for Service Members’ and Their Dependents Travel to Get Abortions
The decisions might affect any defense budget bills, especially if the Republicans take control of the House.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that the Pentagon would pay for service members’ travel to get abortions.
Austin wants to protect “reproductive health care.”
The media buried another part. The Pentagon would also help Defense health care providers escape states that have strict abortion laws “in order to support the performance of official duties.”
Austin justified these decisions because SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade and some states have passed laws or enacted old laws that restrict abortions.
“We also recognize that recent developments may create legal and financial risk for our health care providers as they carry out their lawful federal duties,” said Austin. “I am committed to the Department taking all appropriate action, within its authority and consistent with applicable federal law, as soon as possible to ensure that our Service members and their families can access reproductive health care and our health care providers can operate effectively.”
The Hyde Amendment bans the government from paying for abortions except when the mother’s life is in trouble, rape, or incest. It says nothing about travel.
Austin wrote regarding service members who want abortions:
- Create uniform Department of Defense policy that allows for appropriate administrative absence consistent with applicable federal law for non-covered reproductive health care.
- Establish travel and transportation allowances for Service members and their dependents, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law and operational requirements, and as necessary amend any applicable travel regulations, to facilitate official travel to access non-covered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a Service member’s permanent duty station.
For those Defense health providers who perform abortions:
- Develop a program to reimburse applicable fees, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law, for Department of Defense health care providers who wish to become licensed in a different state than that in which they are currently licensed in order to support the performance of official duties.
- Develop a program to support Department of Defense health care providers who are subject to adverse action, including civil or criminal penalties or loss of license or reprimand, for appropriately performing their official duties, to include the indemnification of any verdict, judgment, or monetary award consistent with applicable law.
Austin assured Americans that if he did not protect “reproductive health care,” it would “interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”
So if the Defense Department cannot guarantee service members have access to abortion, our military will suffer.
Okay, bro.
But will these changes affect any defense budget and policy bills, especially if Republicans take control of the House?
Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, the House Armed Services Committee’s top Republican, reminded the Defense Department that taxpayer money is for defense purposes. From Roll Call:
Rogers and other Republicans will have to sign off on the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (HR 7900) later this year, and the GOP hand may be strengthened in the next Congress when the fiscal 2024 NDAA is written. Appropriators may also weigh in on the abortion issue when they write their defense spending bills.
“Taxpayer dollars meant for deterring China and other adversaries should not be squandered on campaign politics,” Rogers said. “DoD must be blocked from wasting any portion of their budget on this horrendous policy.”
Rogers said he is “deeply disappointed that the Department of Defense has allowed President Biden to blatantly misuse the United States Military for political purposes.” Austin’s memo, he said, “released nearly two weeks before the election, is a desperate campaign tactic that undermines the core mission of our military.”
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Comments
It’s the pentagon’s fault if a soldier is stationed in a non-abortion state so the pentagon will pay to travel for an abortion. That’s reasonable.
Would it then follow that to avoid this problem it would be reasonable to station all female personnel in States with less restrictive abortion laws? FT Drum comes to mind. Pretty sure sending all females there would be met with resistance.
Interesting. An all female base. I see no problems there.
Fort Penthesilea?
Why doesn’t DOD make taking birth control mandatory like Covid-19 shots?
What kind of dumb logic is this?
The Pentagon exists to defend America, not to kill kids. If the Pentagon has a problem with women getting pregnant then the solution is simple. It’s not spend taxpayer funds to send women somewhere their kids can be killed, but rather don’t employ women.
But that’s not a Leftist approved position so is effectively a non-starter. Instead the Left will fight to kill kids, or as Guardian79 suggests, make sterility a mandatory requirement for service. Die hard Roman Catholic young lady that wants to serve? Sorry but you’re going to have to decide whether to serve your church or your country – you can’t do both. Evangelical young lady? Well ma’am you’re going to have to decide whether you can accept serving your country means being on the pill. And of course all those so ‘medicated’ will need to accept and deal with weight gain, nausea, vomiting, headaches, fluid retention, blood clots, breast cancer, cervical cancer, liver cancer, clinical depression, drug conflicts, and other side effects.
Wouldn’t it just be simpler to return to a male only army as per the Selective Service System requirements?
It’s the pentagon’s fault if a soldier is stationed in an anti-marijuana state so the pentagon will pay to travel for marijuana. That’s reasonable.
It’s the pentagon’s fault if a soldier is stationed in a gun control state so the pentagon will pay to travel for gun purchases. That’s reasonable.
It’s the pentagon’s fault if a soldier is stationed in an anti-child-sex-change state so the pentagon will pay to travel for minor dependents’ sex change operations. That’s reasonable.
DoD is not gonna win this fight. Hyde Amendment, Antideficiency Act to overcome with a basic Art 1 power of the purse hurdle before those are broached.
“The Hyde Amendment bans the government from paying for abortions except when the mother’s life is in trouble, rape, or incest. It says nothing about travel.”
Is this correct? “…life in trouble…?” Should it not be “at risk?” “In trouble” leaves a lot of wiggle room….
If the servicemember is a trans member, male to female, will they also be allowed to get time off to travel across state lines to get an abortion?
“Austin assured Americans that if he did not protect “reproductive health care,” it would “interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”
This obviously also applies to all Austin’s accommodations for a trans workforce.
Including the subsidized drag shows.
Highly qualified force. Rigorous!
Yet body sovereignty ends with the clot shot.
If the military can require an experimental vaccine under the guise of force readiness, why not mandate contraception? I don’t think the dod should mandate any procedure. Nor do I feel they have the right to spend defense dollars on abortion.
Keep women, and girls, affordable, available, and taxable, and the “burden” h/t Obama of evidence (“our Posterity”, demos-cracy) aborted, cannibalized, sequestered in darkness h/t WaPo. The Pro-Choice ethical religion denies women and men’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to negotiable commodities. All’s fair in love and war… lust and abortion.
What is the services responsibility when they provide contraception at no cost to begin with?
DOD has just created an absolute administrative mess by creating this abortion carveout. So now there will be a record of the service paying for travel and giving non chargeable leave for what should be a private medical matter. I am surprised this passed the lawyers who should have considered the HIPPA implications. It was much better when we all just turned a blind eye and gave SPC Jones a weekend pass. No one was the wiser, and the service member got their medical care.
Will trans”women” get the same benefit?
Nope. They have to carry their fictional child to term. But, viewing this again with my Brandon vision glasses, yeah sure of course.
That’s rich from the DoD that told military families complaining about the high cost of food to go on food stamps.
That’s always been their answer. In 1996 a Sergeant with an unemployed, pregnant spouse qualified for food stamps.
So they have money for abortions, but not for food for the kids that aren’t killed?
Nice….
Will the Pentagon transport service members to gun shops and pay for their firearms? If they are going to uphold rights then uphold all of them, especially the real ones found in the constitution.
“Austin assured Americans that if he did not “reproductive health care,” it would “interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”
Qualified for what? We already know how to lose wars and have the military to accomplish that anywhere in the world. This will just add to the $2T we already threw away in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gotta keep that grift rolling in.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that the Pentagon would pay for service members’ travel to get abortions.
So what happened to all those plans to establish abortion facilities (won’t call them clinics because they aren’t) on federal military bases. I seem to remember early on when it became apparent that Roe was going to be overturned that was a plan abortion advocates were promoting to keep abortion available in those states that banned the practice.
Can it be denied that arranging care for infants may delay deployment of service members? Why not infanticide should it be needed to assure the readiness of our troops?
Why not just use contraceptives? And don’t STDs interfere with the readiness of our troops?
I assume military parents are still required to have a written plan for the care of minor dependents in case of deployment.
I think JRaeL’s on point here. Not only should abortion be provided by the DOD, it should be mandated for the sake of maintaining readiness.
No it’s not the military paying for it
It’s US, the USA taxpayers
This sh!t has to stop!!!!
Stacey Abrams is happy that the military has been enlisted in the fight against inflation.
She should fight her own inflation.
As an aside, I’m amused that these liars keep calling infanticide “reproductive health care.” It is widely acknowledged by everyone that while there is no set number (according to the abortionists, who like “gender-affirming” pediatricians are only thinking of their bottom line) when a woman has more than three abortions the procedure can cause harm to a woman’s vaginal health and the uterus to deteriorate.
Making it difficult if not impossible for the woman to conceive. And incapable of carrying a child to term if she does conceive.
How is a procedure that may render a woman incapable of reproducing “reproductive health care?”
Out: join the military to pay for college.
In: join the military to pay for an abortion.
Be all you can be.
Does anyone know if TRICARE covers abortions? I think it’s going to be very difficult to get health insurance coverage for this through Tricare unless you pay out of pocket. Tricare is a PITA to get referrals outside your area of coverage, and your PCM has to approve it. So I would say that Austin (who BTW has a very punchable face as I cannot stand the idiot) is just doing lip-service to be in with the woke crowd to get more recruits.
Aside from that, I think that the DOD’s stance on this is telling how rotten this country truly is, and this type of evil will only add fuel to the dumpster fire of national failure.