Tuberville’s office has shot back against the Pentagon’s statement that it was not subsidizing troops’ abortions with taxpayer money and called it “too cute by half.”
The Pentagon’s press secretary John Kirby recently sent a tweet refuting Senator Tommy Tuberville’s claim that the Pentagon was not covering abortion services for military personnel. Kirby said that the claim was “too cute by half” since it was legal for health care providers to offer such services to active-duty service members.
Following the press secretary’s tweet, Tuberville’s office issued a statement saying that Kirby was “being too precious” by trying to “spin how taxpayer money is being spent on abortions for active duty service members.”
The statement said that there was a clear double standard being used by the Pentagon as “there is a law in place to protect the unborn from any federal funding from being used to pay for abortions,” adding that “it should not be up to individual service members to know this law and its implications every time they seek health care.”
The press secretary’s tweet was a response to Tuberville’s claims during a recent Senate hearing, which focused on a spending bill that would allocate $2.2 billion to the Department of Defense (DoD). The bill allocates $118.9 million of that money towards the DoD’s family planning program in 2021, as well as other gender-related initiatives.
Tuberville asserted during the hearing that the money would be used to fund abortions for military personnel, but Kirby stipulated that this was not the case, thus prompting Tuberville’s office to refute him.
Tuberville’s office strongly defended the claim, stating that “taxpayer dollars should not be used to end the lives of unborn children” and that the Pentagon needed to be held accountable. The statement concluded that Kirby was “shady to suggest that the Pentagon was able to allocate money for something that was legally prohibited.”
It is unclear how the Pentagon will respond to Tuberville’s office’s statement, but it is evident that the heated debate over the controversial issue of taxpayer-funded abortions is likely to continue.