FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the rating member on the Senate Armed Providers Committee, is questioning President Biden’s Division of Protection over its abortion journey help insurance policies that Secretary Lloyd Austin has beforehand stated are essential for pressure readiness.
Wicker prompt that recently-revealed knowledge casts doubt on the Biden administration’s justifications for the insurance policies. The Division of Protection has stated the abortion journey coverage is essential for guaranteeing troop readiness.
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In a letter despatched on Monday, the senator requested proof from the Pentagon on how its abortion journey allowances are crucial for pressure readiness within the wake of Roe v. Wade’s reversal, as Austin beforehand claimed.
In a improvement on Tuesday, the division introduced new figures concerning the coverage, quickly after being requested for remark by Fox Information Digital, and someday after Wicker’s letter prompted it to clarify new knowledge he obtained via one other Senate committee.
Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, proper, is requesting knowledge on abortion journey coverage utilization and value from the Division of Protection led by Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin, left. (Getty Photos)
In line with Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh, the journey allowance coverage was used 12 occasions from June-December of 2023. The allowances can be utilized for “non-covered” abortions, however are additionally accredited for different procedures and coverings. The associated fee to the Pentagon was roughly $40,800, she stated.
Whereas the division presents approved allowances for journey and transportation help, this doesn’t imply that each one service members who journey to acquire abortions have requested or obtained such allowances.
In his Monday letter, Wicker famous he obtained knowledge “indirectly through a different Senate committee,” which confirmed that the Military recorded “between August 2023 and December 31, 2023, three service members utilized the policy and claimed travel expenses totaling $2,097.”
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The information on abortion coverage utilization and value in 2023 was supplied to a different Senate committee by the Military, per Wicker’s workplace. It was then forwarded to Wicker.
“Still, with today’s news, the fact remains: This administration has recklessly politicized the military with this farce of a policy,” stated Wicker in a press release to Fox Information Digital. “The Department even admitted today that those that use the policy may not have even used it for an abortion. The reality is that access to abortions is not a threat to readiness.”
Wicker recalled Austin’s past claim that the Supreme Court docket’s choice in Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group, returning the problem of abortion to the states, “has impacted access to reproductive health care, with readiness, recruiting and retention implications for the force.”
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Within the letter, Wicker slammed the division for offering solely “incomplete, evasive, or outright non-answers” when he prompted it on three separate events in 2023 for info to justify the abortion coverage and the way it impacts pressure readiness.
U.S. Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
He famous that in response to his most up-to-date letter in December, the division centered on fertilization companies and averted discussing the “provision of non-covered abortion services that end the lives of unborn babies.”
Wicker additional criticized the division’s response for refusing to offer info on the utilization of the insurance policies and the amount of cash that was being spent, prompting him to acquire the data elsewhere. He claimed the response, “is contradicted by the Army’s data which clearly provided the number of service members who have claimed reimbursement of travel expenses using the policy.”
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Dobbs overturned Roe in June 2022. (Jose Luis Magana/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
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“That number is essential to best capture the actual readiness impact on the force, if any,” he defined within the Monday letter.
Wicker moreover requested the division to offer up-to-date knowledge, “in the same form the Army has provided,” on utilization of the coverage since implementation.
The senator had additionally requested “immediate delivery” of this knowledge from the division, noting the opposite events on which it was not supplied.
