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FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the rating member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is questioning President Biden’s Department of Defense over its abortion travel help insurance policies that Secretary Lloyd Austin has beforehand mentioned are vital for pressure readiness.
Wicker prompt that recently-revealed knowledge casts doubt on the Biden administration’s justifications for the insurance policies. The Department of Defense has mentioned the abortion travel policy is vital 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 travel 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 policy, quickly after being requested for remark by Fox News Digital, and in the future 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 travel policy utilization and price from the Department of Defense led by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, left. (Getty Images)
According to Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh, the travel allowance policy was used 12 instances from June-December of 2023. The allowances can be utilized for “non-covered” abortions, however are additionally accepted for different procedures and coverings. The price to the Pentagon was roughly $40,800, she mentioned.
While the division gives approved allowances for travel and transportation help, this doesn’t imply that each one service members who travel to receive 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 Army 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 knowledge on abortion policy utilization and price in 2023 was offered to one other Senate committee by the Army, 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,” mentioned Wicker in a press release to Fox News 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 previous declare that the Supreme Court’s resolution in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 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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In 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 data to justify the abortion policy and the way it impacts pressure readiness.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP by way of Getty Images)
He famous that in response to his most up-to-date letter in December, the division centered on fertilization providers and prevented 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 present data on the utilization of the insurance policies and the sum of money that was being spent, prompting him to receive 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 Images)
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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 present up-to-date knowledge, “in the same form the Army has provided,” on utilization of the policy since implementation.
The senator had additionally requested “immediate delivery” of this knowledge from the division, noting the opposite events on which it was not offered.
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