Sen Tuberville vows to hold up military nominations over Pentagon attempt to expand abortion access

Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Tuesday that he will put a hold on all military nominees if the Pentagon keeps trying to expand abortion access for service members.

"We have got no control of this country right now and they're trying to control everything," Tuberville said on the John Solomon Reports podcast, referring to the Biden administration. "But I'm telling you one thing: I'm going to control their nominations if they don't give me an answer of why and how we can do this the proper way." 

Currently, federal money cannot be used to pay for abortions in the military with the exceptions of the mother's life being in danger, rape, or incest. After the Supreme Court this past summer overturn of Roe v. Wade, ending federal rights to abortions, military officials have been trying to expand abortion access to its troops, the Military Times reported in October. 

"We've averaged probably 20 tot 25 abortions a year in the military and that's out of 2.1 million people," Tuberville said. "But we found out a few months ago that the military and the Pentagon were gonna make changes with this."

The freshman senator said he was granted a requested briefing on the matter, only to learn while there that the Pentagon was going to try to change policy without going through the proper channels and that would go against federal law.

"They're getting ready to drop a new policy that's been there for years, which they can't do," Tuberbville said. "It's federal law. Congress has to do it. But they think that they can do anything they want in this administration." 

The new policy would also expand abortion access to dependents of service members.

"What they're going to do now is they're going to allow abortion on demand," Tuberville said. "They're going to transport the soldier to any state they want to go to and they're going to allow dependents of that military personnel to have abortions. So we're going from having 20 a year on average to 4,000 a year just for military personnel and that's not counting the dependents."

Tuberville wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in which he expressed his concerns about the way this policy was being handled. 

"Last I checked, these people didn't run for Congress," he argued about Pentagon officials. "We make the laws over here. I told them not to drop this in the next few weeks during the holiday season. I warned them 'if you do this, I will hold up every nomination, civilian and flagship officer until you explain to me or retract this policy.' "

He also said: "The one thing a senator can do is stop the wheel from turning, and I hate to do it. But they are not allowed, according to the constitution, to change this law themselves without running it through Congress."