Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, just a couple quick points.
First of all, there is no legality issue here. This policy is clearly and unequivocally legal. As the quotes from the Hyde amendment said earlier, the Hyde amendment says that the government can't pay for an abortion or use their services for abortion.
The travel policy does not do either one of those things, so there is nothing illegal and nothing unconstitutional. This is a policy choice, and we have heard some very passionate arguments on both sides about what that policy choice should be.
Number one, let's put aside this ridiculous notion that this is illegal or unconstitutional. No. This is a perfectly legal policy that, on a policy ground, you disagree with.
Number two, in response to Chairman Rogers' comment about this being a new policy, it is not really a new policy in the following sense: It has always been the policy of the Department of Defense that if you cannot get the healthcare that you need where you are at, they will pay to take you to where you can.
Now, prior to the Dobbs decision, that was not an issue when it came to reproductive services. The Dobbs decision changed that. The Biden administration didn't support the Dobbs decision and didn't make that happen.
Once that happened, servicemembers in many, many States were no longer able to get the reproductive healthcare that they needed or wanted where they were, so, therefore, the travel policy that has been a long-time existing policy then applied. It applied to servicemembers seeking reproductive healthcare that couldn't get it in the State where they were.
This is not a change in policy, and it is not illegal. It is a policy choice. As a number of speakers have mentioned, it is an important policy choice on the very recruitment issue. It will be harder to recruit women if they are not protected.
I think the former Speaker made an outstanding argument for why it is really important. Even if you don't believe in abortion, you have a miscarriage, you need these services that you cannot get, this is crucial to recruitment.
The last point on this is we keep hearing the military is not popular anymore because of Biden's woke policies, which is ridiculous. To the extent that the military has gone down in credibility, it is because so many people are running around trashing our military saying they are excessively woke.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Our military is the best in the world. It is the best in the world today with those policies. Continuously undercutting and trashing our military as being weak and woke is hurting recruitment. I will grant you that. It is completely wrong, as are Senator Tuberville's efforts to gut the military's ability to do its job because he disagrees with the policy.
We had a vote on it. President Biden got elected. He made his decision. Change the policy. Don't trash the military.
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