Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to stand here beside my women colleagues in support of this very important motion. As they have shared, we have an essential duty to protect the rights of our servicemembers, their reproductive rights. We protect the decisions that they must be able to make about their own body.

When servicemembers volunteer, they know that they will be making sacrifices. They know that they will have to follow orders. They know that they will have to take on hard missions and do whatever is necessary to defend our country. One thing they did not sign up for is to sacrifice their fundamental medical care and their fundamental rights to their own body.

Access to medical care has a direct impact on military readiness. I am very surprised to find that the very people that are claiming to care about our military's capability and readiness are pushing policies which will actively degrade our fighting forces.

Denying access to medical care sends a loud and clear message to every woman in the military now and to every other woman that may want to join the military; that is, your reproductive rights will not be honored or will not even exist should you join the military.

That is a message that will be sent to 18 percent of the women who make up our military today, and it will send the same message to every other woman who might want to join the military in the future.

The policies that are in this bill will chase women away from what they want; that is, to patriotically serve our country in the military. It is the wrong message.

This particular instruction should pass this House if we care about the readiness of our military.

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