Tommy Tuberville is right about the military.
Tommy Tuberville is right about the military.
N o one noticed over the years that, on top of its other supposed benefits, Roe v. Wade was protecting the readiness of the U.S. military.
Yes, in a major war we’d want to make sure we have secure supply lines, overwhelming force — and free and easy access to abortion.
Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville has become Public Enemy No. 1 for blocking all military promotions and nominations over a Pentagon policy that could have been drafted by a committee of Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Pentagon is funding abortion tourism for troops in case they find themselves behind enemy lines, i.e. stationed in a state that has significant post-Dobbs restrictions on abortion.
In a June 28, 2022, memorandum the Department of Defense, once headed by the likes of James Forrestal and Cap Weinberger, said the Dobbs decision would have “significant implications” for the “readiness of the Force.”
Note the audacity here: The claim isn’t that Dobbs would have marginal or barely detectable effects on readiness, which would have been dubious enough, but “significant” ones.
The Pentagon then issued another memorandum saying that Dobbs has “readiness, recruiting, and retention implications for the Force.”
It’s as if we won’t be able to deploy, say, the First Armored Division in response to a crisis in Europe because the legendary division based in Fort Bliss, Texas, has been too hobbled by the Texas heartbeat bill. Old Ironsides, which has endured so many enemies to this point, has finally been undone by restrictions on abortion.
It’s a wonder the Pentagon didn’t write an amicus brief in the Dobbs case supporting Roe as necessary on national-security grounds.
Of course, DoD is following a political script — the administration wants to paint Dobbs in the most dire terms possible, and show its base that it is doing its utmost to work around its consequences.
Stretching the limits of the law is never an obstacle. A letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin from every Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee a few months ago pointed out that the Pentagon’s new abortion-enabling paid travel and leave policies “are a blatant attempt to circumvent numerous federal statutes that distance the military from abortion-related decisions.”
As Tom Cotton said on Fox News Sunday of women who want to get an abortion prohibited where they are stationed, “If they want to take that step, they have 30 days of annual leave. It shouldn’t be taxpayer funds giving them three weeks of paid, uncharged leave and then also paying for travel and lodging and meals — something that we don’t even give our troops when they have a parent die.”
While Tuberville has resorted to the nuclear option in the Senate, House Republicans passed a National Defense Authorization Act last week reversing the new abortion policy, as well as targeting DEI training and “gender-affirming care.”
In a typical example of how the media cover these kinds of disputes, the Republican bill rolling back these relatively new initiatives has been called “divisive” in the press, whereas the underlying policies would never be characterized the same way.
The Left often stakes out a far-out position that hadn’t occurred to anyone a short time ago, and, then, whenever someone objects or takes countervailing action, he or she is portrayed as the radical and aggressor.
“The only explanation for it,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D., N.Y.) said of the NDAA, “is that they are so obsessed with jamming their extreme right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people that extreme MAGA Republicans are willing to even detonate the ability of our military to do what it needs to do to keep us safe.”
Really? Who’s using the military as a platform for the abortion wars? Who has suffused it with a DEI ideology that not too long ago was limited to academia? Who has made it swallow the idea that climate change is a national-security risk? Or forced it to be up-to-date on all the latest gender insanity?
In short, who has distorted and distracted from the military’s core mission of simply being an extremely adept fighting force?
And, in light of all this, should it be surprising that the NDAA wasn’t passed on the usual bipartisan basis, or that Tuberville is treating nominations that once enjoyed easy confirmation due to their apolitical nature more like the Senate treats, say, a judge or an EPA administrator?
The “extreme” agenda of Republicans here is to return to status quo ante prior to the woke revolution that has co-opted so many of the country’s institutions, including the military.
There are many things that are necessary to deal with the rising military threat from China, from new-generation weapons to an updated nuclear triad. Needless to say, abortion on demand is not one of them.