War in Israel has captured the attention of the world, demanding a serious look at how Iranian-backed Hamas was able to attack innocent civilians, behead babies, as well as rape, torture, and kidnap women, children, and the elderly, who they now pledge to execute if Israel retaliates.
This loss of life — Americans among them – is being called Israel’s 9/11. Who helped make this happen?
Did the up to $80 billion freed up by the Biden administration along with resources from former President Obama fund the atrocities we saw? Is it endemic to the nature of the conflict? There is a lot of blame to go around, but one group singled out early makes no sense at all: Pro-life objection to making the military an abortion vendor is not the reason the initial response to long-planned Hamas violence fell flat.
MSNBC, ignoring the barbarity of Hamas, pointed to a lack of support for abortion as key to understanding an attack on Israel. If only Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., allowed the Biden administration to illegally insert abortion into military spending, all would be well. Because of Tuberville’s opposition, former CIA and NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said the senator should “not be considered a member of the human race.” This comment led Tuberville to alert Capitol Police.
Political has-beens like David Frum and the often bitter Bill Kristol added their voices to those calling for a fast track to abortion spending, as if ending the lives of military family members would better prepare our fighting force to notice Hamas or support one of our most loyal allies.
But the political posturing is typical of the abortion zealots who want abortion tourism paid for by taxpayers.
In a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in March, U.S. senators reminded the Biden official that such a thing is — to be clear — unlawful. Twelve U.S. senators including Tuberville wrote:
The policies the Department of Defense announced on February 16, 2023, are a blatant attempt to circumvent numerous federal statutes that distance the military from abortion-related decisions. Namely, it would force taxpayers to subsidize abortions by paying for service members or their dependents to travel to obtain the procedure and by granting additional leave for this purpose. Facilitating a service member’s abortion through this channel violates the spirit of 10 U.S.C. § 1093, which prohibits the Department of Defense from funding elective abortions; it also brazenly departs from the Department of Defense’s historic interpretation of its travel authorities in 37 U.S.C. §§ 452 and 453. These regulations authorize official travel for many activities, but, notably, they say nothing about funding travel to receive an elective abortion. Taking such significant liberties with federal law is a grave matter.
Reserving taxpayer resources for military support seems a commonsense thing to do. For example, these funds could have been used to monitor terrorist chatter or provide more substantial soldier salaries to bolster diminishing recruitment. Yet here we are — thousands dead and missing, babies murdered in their homes. And it’s more abortion that will turn the tide and stop Hamas terrorists?
Is that really what they want? Fewer babies drawing breath in America?
To be clear, there is sadly nothing preventing members of the military from using their own money and time for abortion. Rather, Tuberville knows it’s taxpayer money and time that are at stake. The Biden administration’s social experiment with our brave fighting men and women is great cause for alarm as the world seems poised for an expanding conflict.
In the U.S., groups like Black Lives Matter — willing to engage in riots and mayhem — stand with Hamas, and protesters in New York City flashed swastikas. Add to that the missing terrorists who walked across Biden’s open border, and it’s clear that we are going to need a strong national defense if those who praise violent deeds act violently.
Former speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, warned this week, “We should wake up ourselves. We could have the same thing happen next week to us.”
Blaming Tuberville’s opposition to abortion spending for any lack of readiness is more than disingenuous. The radically pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could bring up the military candidates for a vote, one at a time, if he didn’t want to hold onto his abortion talking point. And the Democrats could drop their push altogether.
Rahm Emanuel — the former chief of staff to then president-elect Barack Obama — articulated the cold calculous, saying: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Perhaps Schumer is a fan of the Rahm Emanual strategy.
Democrats couldn’t fund abortion in the military before, but there is something exceptionally cold about saying that defending the innocent in Israel demands the loss of innocent lives to abortion in the United States. Using this crisis to insert a pro-abortion agenda into military spending goes far beyond the ordinary shamelessness of politics.
