Tuberville and House Republicans Dig Even Bigger Hole on Abortion - Horowitz

Tuberville and House Republicans Dig Even Bigger Hole on Abortion - Horowitz

“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging,” Will Rogers famously said. At least when it comes to the issue of abortion, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and House Republicans are rejecting this sound common-sense advice from the early 20th-century humorist.

Senator Tuberville is jeopardizing military readiness by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions, attempting to force the armed services to reverse a policy that enables women serving in the military in states that have abortion bans to travel to other states to have the procedure. The military grants leave for the procedure and assumes the cost of travel, but not the cost of the procedure itself.  In taking this action, Mr. Tuberville is breaking a long-held tradition of bipartisan cooperation on military appointments.

 

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While some of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have pushed back on the Alabama senator’s reckless move, Mr. Tuberville is not isolated on his own island. This past week, Republicans in the House of Representatives advanced and passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) doing away with this travel option for women in the military.

 

Put in place in October 2022, the military policy that Tuberville and House Republicans are working to reverse is a response to the overturning of Roe v, Wade. It is designed to ensure that troops, no matter where they are stationed, have access to a full range of reproductive health care services. “In a memo, issued at the time, Secretary of Defense Austin said service members and their families were worried they may not get equal access to health care, including abortions,” AP wrote. “And as many states began to impose more abortion restrictions, he noted that service members who often must move for various missions or training would be forced to travel further, take more time off work and pay more to access reproductive health care.”

 

Holding both military promotions and funding hostage to reversing equal access to abortion for those serving in our military is not only substantively wrong; it borders on political malpractice. The salience of abortion resulting from the overturning of Roe v. Wade combined with Republican candidates’ hardline pro-life stances was one of the major reasons that the GOP underperformed in the 2022 midterms, significantly contributing to its failure to take back the Senate and severely limiting the number of seats gained in the House.

 

 This current hardline stance in which Republicans are putting curbs on access to abortion for women who are serving our country ahead of military readiness is the definition of “digging a bigger hole.”   Hemmed in by the extreme MAGA members he put on the House Rules Committee to secure his speakership, Kevin McCarthy’s decision to force moderate Republicans in swing districts to cast a vote on this, as well as most of the moderates’ decisions to vote for this pro-life amendment, will up the difficulty of their re-election contests, making it harder for Republicans to hold on to the House in the 2024 elections.

Asked about all this on Fox News Sunday, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) put more logs on this growing political fire, calling the policy ensuring equal access to reproductive health care for our soldiers, “abortion tourism.”   If you are trying to persuade the overwhelming majority of women in the United States not to vote Republican, it's hard to do better than that.   It appears that any major course correction either in how to frame the issue or in backing for unpopular abortion curbs will have to await more electoral defeats.