The House of Representatives voted Thursday to terminate the Defense Department’s policy of allowing servicemembers to travel across state lines to get an abortion and reimbursing them for their travel costs.
Lawmakers voted 221-213 in favor of an amendment to the annual defense policy bill from Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, that would force the Pentagon to end this policy. The Defense Department put the policy in place shortly after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
The House vote is a victory for conservatives who hinted that including the language in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was critical to their support for the entire bill. However, the language is certain to lead many Democrats to vote against the bill.
“In the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration immediately set out to side-step the ruling and circumvent the law wherever possible,” Jackson said. “The Biden administration has encouraged every federal agency to create rules and adopt policies that not only expand abortion access but also leave American taxpayers on the hook to subsidize abortion services.”
Another by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., that would ban the use of military healthcare for gender transition surgeries or hormone therapies, passed 222-21
Two amendments from Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, were aimed at cracking down on the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the military, and both were approved.
The first looked to ban the use of federal funds to establish diversity officer and advisor roles within the Pentagon, while the second prohibited the Defense Department’s educational arm from promoting teachings that call the U.S. and its founding documents racist. . . . (read more on Fox News)
Abortion, LGBTQ+ Rights and Other Culture War Fights Dominate House-Passed Defense Bill (Military.com, 14 JUL 23)
The Pentagon would not be able to provide gender-affirmation care to transgender troops or travel funds to service members who need abortions under the sweeping annual defense policy bill passed by the House on Friday.
The bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, encompasses a range of routine military issues, including endorsing a 5.2% pay raise for service members next year — the largest pay increase in two decades. . . .
. . . . Meanwhile, two separate amendments would bar service members and dependents who are transgender from getting surgery or taking hormones. Despite no reports of any detrimental effects on the military since transgender troops have been able to serve openly, Republicans have leaned into anti-LGBTQ+ messaging as part of their electoral strategy.
In addition to the ban on health care for transgender troops, Republicans also passed an amendment to ban books with “pornographic material or … radical gender ideology,” which the measure does not define, from Defense Department school libraries.
Republicans also targeted diversity efforts with an amendment to bar the military from having any form of “chief diversity officer.” And despite the Supreme Court exempting military academies from its recent ruling against affirmative action, Republicans approved an amendment that would effectively ban affirmative action at the academies.
Some anti-diversity efforts fell short. A GOP amendment to ban any training in the military on “diversity, equity and inclusion,” which was not defined in the amendment, failed with nine Republicans joining Democrats in opposition.
Also voted down was a measure to block any more efforts to change the names of Defense Department property that honor members of the Civil War-era Confederacy. All but two of the nine Army bases that bore Confederate names have already been renamed, but the congressionally mandated commission that was tasked with coming up with renaming plans identified hundreds of streets, buildings, signs and other smaller pieces of property that honor the Confederacy that will be changed.. . . (read more)
Leave a Comment