CV NEWS FEED // A public policy advocacy organization representing the Southern Baptist Convention urged several congressmen this week to uphold pro-life protections in the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
“Congress has both a duty and an obligation to protect preborn lives and ensure that the consciences of taxpayers are not implicated by the misuse of federal funding,” Brent Lockwood, president of the advocacy organization Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), wrote in an Aug. 26 letter.
The letter addressed the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Jack Reed, Committee Ranking Member Roger Wicker, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers, and Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith.
The yearly NDAA greenlights the budget and expenditures for the Department of Defense and related agencies, according to an Aug. 26 news release from the ERLC. The NDAA also may address topics related to policies for military personnel, such as medical expense reimbursement policies.
In the Aug. 26 letter, Lockwood wrote that “[a]s Congress continues negotiations for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Southern Baptists have several priorities for consideration,” including pro-life protections within the NDAA.
“Congress itself has time and again expressed a desire to protect taxpayer consciences and remain steadfast in its long-standing position against taxpayer funding of the harmful and deceptive abortion industry,” Lockwood wrote.
There are over 20 pro-life protections that have been renewed every year, Lockwood pointed out, but after the Dobbs decision, “the Biden administration has sought to circumvent these funding restrictions from Congress by directing the Department of Defense to provide reimbursement to service members for abortion-related lodging and travel.”
Lockwood wrote that “the ERLC strongly opposes” using taxpayer money for these pro-abortion purposes.
“Millions of taxpayers around the country oppose abortion as a result of deeply held religious and moral beliefs, and we encourage Congress to ensure their consciences are not violated by supporting the grievous evil of abortion,” he added.
The letter also called on Congress to oppose using taxpayers’ dollars for expanding in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology and other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). The letter listed several ethical concerns surrounding the practice of IVF.
According to Lockwood, both the House and Senate NDAA versions include provisions expanding IVF coverage for those with the military health insurance, TRICARE.
Lockwood also argued that certain language in the Senate NDAA version “allows for future taxpayer funding of a variety of similarly morally egregious practices, including cloning, womb transplants for transgender individuals, or genetic modification of embryos.”
“Southern Baptists maintain serious ethical concerns about all of this, and the ERLC urges Congress to reject any expansion of taxpayer funding for such practices,” he wrote.
