Split House Votes to Overturn Pentagon Abortion Access Policy

A divided House voted on Thursday to overturn a controversial Pentagon policy that ensured abortion access to service members wherever they may be stationed. At the same time, the same split chamber opted to bar health services for trans military personnel.

The decision, spearheaded by conservative House members, to load up the annual defense spending bill with right-focused demands to undo so-called “woke” policies is likely to intensify the battle over ultimate passage of the spending measure.

As reported by The New York Times, the vote was 221 to 213, nearly along party lines, to attach the abortion proposal to the spending bill. Ultra-conservative lawmakers insisted on the addition as a condition of moving the legislation forward in the chamber, the paper reported. 

Meanwhile, by a nearly similar vote, 222 to 211, the House embraced a measure to bar the military’s health plan from covering gender-transition surgeries — the Times said these are now only covered with a waiver — as well as gender-modifying hormone therapy.

As anticipated, Democrats condemned the moves, and some went so far as to warn that they could not back the defense bill at all with the abortion restriction attached. 

“The MAGA majority is using our defense bill to get one step closer to the only thing they really care about: a nationwide abortion ban,” Rep. Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic whip, said in a floor speech, the Times said.

The $886 billion measure would grant a 5.2% pay raise to military personnel, counter aggressive moves by China and Russia, and establish a special inspector general to oversee U.S. aid to Ukraine. With the GOP holding only a slim edge in the House, it is unclear if the defense bill can pass without the Democrats’ support.

The abortion policy by the Pentagon has been a source of much recent controversy. For months, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has used his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to block hundreds of military nominations over the abortion access policy.  He was lambasted by President Joe Biden over the obstruction on Thursday.

“The idea that we don’t have a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the idea that we have all these promotions that are in abeyance right now and we don’t know what’s going to happen, the idea they we’re injecting into fundamental foreign policy decisions what in fact is a domestic social debate on social issues, is bizarre,” Biden said in a media event with Finland’s president in Helsinki, according to NBC News.

“I don’t ever recall it happening, ever. And it’s just totally irresponsible, in my view.”