New Defense Spending Bill Allows Biden to Make Americans Fund Abortion Travel

Congressional Republicans have an opportunity to strike back against a policy from Joe Biden that forces Americans to fund abortion travel.

Unpopular and likely illegal, the Biden policy requires taxpayers to fund travel costs and paid time off for military service members and their families to abort their unborn babies in elective abortions.

Unfortunately, the defense spending bill unveiled in the House early Thursday does not contain provisions striking the pro-abortion policy.

Conservatives touted that the Fiscal Year 2024 Defense Appropriations Act for cutting other leftist spending and funding that many Americans find objectionable. But nothing is more objectionable to making Americans used their hard-earned tax dollars funding members of the military to travel to other states to have their babies killed in abortions.

The measure could have and should have been included in the proposal – especially since the House has already approved it. House Republicans successfully added an amendment to a defense spending bill to block the policy last time around. Last year, House Republicans succeeded in passing the Jackson-Roy amendment to the NDAA.

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The House voted 221-213 and 222-210 in favor of amendments to the NDAA to ban the Pentagon from paying for expenses related to killing unborn babies and from funding gender transition procedures

“My amendment to stop Biden from using the DOD to pay for abortion travel passed This policy is illegal, and soon, it will be gone. This is a great day for our country,” said pro-life Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson after the vote.

Jackson said then that the pro-life amendment “will halt the Biden administration’s illegal and immoral abortion policy” for members of the armed forces and their families.

“Taxpayer funding of travel for an abortion is in fact taxpayer-funded abortion, and this administration has been enacting policies across the government in clear violation of the law,” Jackson said. “The Biden administration has sidestepped existing statute and given the [Defense] Department permission to take this illegal course of action. This has left House Republicans with no choice but to take corrective measures and pass additional legislation.”

Without the provision in the current bill, Jackson or another member will have to propose the amendment again.

Federal law (10 U.S.C. § 1093) has long prevented the Department of Defense (DOD) from using funds to perform elective abortions and prevented the DOD from using its facilities to provide abortions. On October 20, 2022, the Biden Administration’s DOD published a memorandum directing the DOD to pay the travel and transportation costs for military members and dependents who travel to obtain elective abortions.

The federal prohibition against DOD funding of elective abortion clearly extends to funding for any item related to abortion, such as travel and transportation, which has been the case for the entire life of the funding prohibition.

The Jackson Amendment:

• Clarifies and explains federal law (10 U.S.C. § 1093) that prevents DOD funding from being used to perform elective abortions and prohibits DOD facilities from being used to provide abortions.
• Repeals the October 20, 2022 memorandum.
• Amends federal law to clarify that the DOD may not pay for the licensure of healthcare professionals in a state if the purpose is to provide abortions.

Polls consistently show strong public opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions. A new Marist poll found 60 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in the U.S. Additionally, 78 percent oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in other countries.

Bans on taxpayer funding for elective abortions used to have strong bipartisan support in Congress. Only recently did Democrat leaders abandon the American people on the issue and begin supporting taxpayer funding for elective abortions – a goal of the abortion industry, which spends huge amounts of money on elections.

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