CV NEWS FEED // Congress removed an amendment that would have ended the Department of Defense’s (DoD) controversial pro-abortion policy from their draft version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
“A draft version of the NDAA unveiled Thursday by the Senate and House Armed Services committees says House Republicans who passed the amendment over the summer agreed to drop the provision,” The Hill reported.
POLITICO added that “the exclusion” of the pro-life amendment “sets up a test for Speaker Mike Johnson” by pinning him with a deal that pro-life lawmakers will have reason to reject.
“This new version of the bill is on track to pass both houses with bipartisan support,” POLITICO continued. “Yet the abortion policy omission is a blow to conservatives who muscled the provision into the House version of the bill over the summer.”
The Biden administration’s DoD instituted the policy, which uses taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions for service members, earlier this year. Pro-life Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, immediately announced he would place holds on the Senate’s blanket confirmation of military promotions until the Pentagon rescinded the policy.
Tuberville’s campaign lasted for nearly 10 months until he finally decided to withdraw his holds on Tuesday of this week. The pro-abortion policy remains in effect.
According to The Military Times, the NDAA now includes a “5.2% pay raise for troops.” In addition, the “nearly 2,400 page” legislation “sets nearly all of the military’s new policy provisions and spending priorities for the year.”
“It is viewed as a must-pass bill by most lawmakers and has successfully advanced through Congress for more than six decades, even among partisan strife in the House and Senate,” The Military Times noted.
As CatholicVote reported in July:
The NDAA, which is usually passed each fiscal year, dates back to the early 1960s. Maiya Clark, Senior Research Associate of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense Congress’s called it the “yearly shaping mechanism for the Department of Defense (DOD).” The $886 billion NDAA currently up for consideration is slated to take effect for the upcoming 2024 fiscal year.
