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Floor Speech

Last night, I spoke on the phone with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. I also spoke with him last Thursday. Both conversations were very cordial. We had good conversations, respectful; but they were very brief. There was absolutely no offer--there was no offer--of a compromise. It is their way or the highway. Thus far, the Pentagon has done nothing but attack me, and I keep repeating the same claims over and over.

Since I spoke with Secretary Austin on Thursday, a few things have changed. One is that the House of Representatives has now passed their annual Defense bill. The bill contains an amendment that would explicitly repeal the memos which implemented the Pentagon's new abortion policy. It wasn't in the base text of the bill. It was added on the floor by the majority of the House Members. The majority of the House of Representatives has spoken out in opposition to this policy. It was a bipartisan vote.

Senator Bennet, Secretary Austin, and President Biden need to realize this. I am not alone. Our team is building and growing, and 60 percent of the country is opposed to taxpayer funding for abortion. That includes Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--60 percent.

The Pentagon's new abortion policy is even worse than that. It is a taxpayer-funded abortion that nobody--and I mean nobody--in the House or here voted for.

It gets worse. This morning, the Pentagon's staff who is in charge of putting this together, gave a briefing to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. To be honest with you, it was a complete debacle. I thought they would be prepared. The briefing confirmed a few things we know about this policy.

First of all, there are virtually no restrictions at all on the use of this policy. None. The briefers confirmed that the policy could be used to facilitate a late-term abortion for enlisted members and their dependents. Pentagon officials confirmed that this policy would facilitate abortion up to the moment of birth, depending on the State-- at the moment of birth. Late-term abortion is opposed--late-term abortion is opposed--by about three-quarters of the American people.

To be clear, the DOD has the authority to perform abortions in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. That was passed on this floor in 1984. Now, what we are talking about with this new policy that no one in this building voted on is taxpayer funding for elective late- term abortion. This is radical. It is extreme. It is downright wrong.

Third, the briefers essentially confirmed that the policy was not-- was not--based on facts. It was based on an extreme political ideology. I asked the briefers for evidence that abortion improves readiness. They should have seen this coming before they walked in the building this morning at 9 o'clock. They knew they were going to be asked this. I have been asking this question for a year; and Pentagon officials still have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that it impedes readiness. When the administration was touting this policy, they said it could lead up to 4,000 taxpayer-funded abortions a year.

Let me explain this.

When I got a briefing last year from the Pentagon, we asked them: How many abortions is this going to consist of? Well, now we are doing two dozen a year. When this policy is put into place, RAND--their polling group out of the Pentagon--said it will affect probably around 4,000. Now, this came from the Pentagon. This wasn't made up by my team or anybody else in my party. This came directly from the Pentagon. Now, I want to say this--4,000--and that is not including dependents. It is not including dependents. So you are looking at a lot more.

Now they are backtracking and accusing me of inflating that number. Well, that is fine. They have a short memory. That argument cuts both ways. The Democrats need to explain why 2,000 abortions--if that is all it is going to be--are necessary for a military of 2 million people. They can't explain it because it has nothing to do with readiness. We are talking about elective abortion.

We already have an abortion policy for rape, incest, and the health of the mom. This policy was, in no way, affected by the Alabama law or any other State law. It has nothing to do with the Dobbs decision. This is a taxpayer-funded abortion that nobody--and I mean nobody--voted for in this building or at the other end of the building.

The Democrats say my hold is unprecedented. Well, I will say this: Their abortion policy is unprecedented. We are here to make the law, not the Pentagon.

Anyone who calls himself pro-life needs to stand up and be counted right now. That means my party included. The Democrats' media machine is throwing the kitchen sink at this hold. It doesn't bother me. I have been called everything anyway. It just makes me that much stronger to hear people complain about this, knowing that deep down, somewhere, there is a soft part in their hearts for 4,000 to 5,000 unborn babies who will never breathe life on this Earth. So the more Joe Biden attacks me, the more I am convinced I am doing the right thing.

It seems like my colleagues on the left will do anything to change the subject and distract from this issue at hand. Recently, even the White House attacked my football record. My wife did the same thing at times. It is absolutely ridiculous, though, how this thing has gotten out of hand. There has been very little conversation, very little dialogue, and that is what this place is supposed to be about. The only dialogue we have had is with Senator Bennet and several other Senators coming in and discussing this in a UC, but the people who can change this and have an opportunity to make a difference in this could sit down and talk.

I hate that we have to do this, but we are going to stick with it. So let's stick with the facts. And, after today's briefing, it is clear to me that the Pentagon doesn't have any facts.

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