WASHINGTON — Members of the House Democratic Women’s Caucus warned defense committee leaders Tuesday that including provisions that limit abortion access in the fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill would make it impossible for them to support the bill’s final passage.
The warning, in the form of a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, adds an additional layer of uncertainty to an already fraught path forward for the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which the House passed in July by a vote of 219-210.
All but four Democrats voted “no” after Republicans amended the bill to rescind a Pentagon policy that reimburses travel for servicemembers who cannot access reproductive health care in states where they are stationed. The same policy led to Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s ongoing hold of more than 300 military promotions in the Senate.
In their letter, House Democratic Women’s Caucus leaders Lois Frankel of Florida, Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico and Nikema Williams of Georgia expressed their strong opposition to any provisions that “attack access to reproductive health care and fertility treatments.”
“Reproductive health care is essential health care, and it shouldn’t be further restricted or used as a bargaining chip in any form in the NDAA conference process,” they wrote.
In addition to rescinding the Pentagon’s travel policy, the provision also would prohibit the secretary of Defense from covering expenses for Defense Department health care providers to obtain a license in a state for the purpose of providing abortions.
Frankel and Fernandez voted for the passage of both the fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022 defense authorization bills. Williams voted against both bills.
The abortion language faces a tough road ahead in the Democrat-led Senate, which did not include it in its version of the fiscal 2024 NDAA, and at the White House, where President Joe Biden is highly unlikely to sign a bill that restricts abortion.
But the Pentagon policy in question is a top target of a fractious House Republican majority that attached socially conservative policy provisions to several fiscal 2024 spending bills as well as the NDAA.
And with no speaker of the House as of Tuesday morning and a looming government funding deadline on Nov. 17, the timeline for broader consideration of a compromise NDAA is uncertain. The House has instructed its NDAA conferees, but the Senate has yet to do so.
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