[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 19, 2023)] [Senate] [Pages S1236-S1238] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-19
Chamber: SENATE
Mr. TUBERVILLE: I am proud to have come from a military family. Our veterans are some of the best people in this country. Because of that, I am grateful to serve on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Giving back to our veterans has been a passion my whole life. Our men and women in uniform deserve the best medical care available. I am grateful for every healthcare provider that works for and with our veterans. The mission of the VA is taken from Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address. Lincoln pledged our country to ``care for him who shall have borne the battle.'' That is what the VA is supposed to be about. But today, under the Biden administration, we see the VA increasingly--increasingly--getting distracted from that very important mission. The Biden administration increasingly has the VA involved in politics. Last year, the VA announced they would begin providing taxpayer- funded abortions--last year. This is something the VA has never, ever done. Let me repeat that. The VA has never done abortions. In fact, the VA has been prohibited by this body from performing abortions at its facilities for more than 30 years. The 102nd Congress--1991 to 1992--made taxpayer-funded abortions at VA facilities illegal. Let me repeat that. Thirty years ago, this body made taxpayer-funded abortions illegal. It is a law. They did this with the bipartisan Veterans Healthcare Act of 1992. The last I heard, that is a Federal law, passed by this body, which, for some reason, we don't want to do anymore. We want the executive branch to be able to do it on their own, and that is wrong. We need to do our job. This, today, is not about abortions. It is about taxpayers paying for abortions that they don't have to pay for because of a law that was presented and passed in this Chamber in 1992. The bill was introduced in the House and the Senate by whom? None other than the Democrats. The Senate passed it unanimously. This includes a Senator by the name of Joe Biden. Now President Biden is breaking the law that he voted for. How do you do that? This is a direct violation of Federal law. The Biden administration even wants taxpayers on the hook for abortions for veterans' dependents. That has never happened. So we are changing the law at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and not in here, where we are supposed to do our job. It has got nothing to do with the VA's mission. The VA won't even tell Congress if they are placing restrictions on abortions. When are they doing it--at 5 months? 3 months? 2 months? after the baby is born? We can't get any information out of them. They just write the laws themselves. The VA has refused to cooperate with Congress throughout this whole process. And that is what this is all about. For all we know, a taxpayer-funded abortion can be at any time, at their choosing. This new policy also includes very limited moral protections for VA medical staff. This, too, is unheard of in our laws and our traditions. We have had moral protections on the books for decades. It was James Madison who said that a man has a right to his property, and ``Conscience is the most sacred property of all.'' This was the attitude of our Founders. Frankly, the Founders would be shocked by what is happening in this Chamber today. Frankly, the Biden administration is violating the consciences of the taxpayers as we speak by putting pressure on the taxpayers to have to defend and go after this. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for abortions, especially not when this was done without anybody's taking a vote in this building, especially when Congress voted to make it illegal 30 years ago. It is illegal and it is wrong. In just a few moments, the Senate has a chance to do something about it. We are going to vote on a bipartisan basis to overturn this rule. If Democrats want taxpayer-funded abortions within the VA healthcare system, let's vote on it. That is what we are elected to do, not lean on a President and the White House to say this is what we are going to do. That ain't the way we do it in this building. If we are going to do it that way, let's lock the door and go home and save the taxpayers a lot of money. Again, this is not about abortion; this is about doing it the wrong way. Let's pass the bill. Let's change the law. Let's don't break the law in here. I would like to thank the dozens of Senators supporting my resolution. I would also like to thank Senator Manchin and Senator Marshall for standing with me earlier today at a press conference to explain the facts to the taxpayers and the citizens of this country. It is very simple: Any Senator who votes against this resolution is voting for taxpayer-funded abortion with no guardrails or protection for any medical staff or nurses. Voting no on this resolution means voting to give away even more power from Congress to the executive branch, and that is really all we need around here. Right now, the VA is spending money we have never voted to spend. Anyone who believes in the appropriations process, let's oppose this rule and support this resolution. Voting no would mean letting the administration spend money without the consent of the people in this room, and that is what we are elected to do. Voting no means a big stamp of approval for a blatantly illegal regulation. Voting against the resolution also means turning the VA into a taxpayer-funded abortion clinic. The VA should be focused on their mission. Lord knows, we have got 20 veterans a day dying of suicide. Why don't we focus on helping the veterans who have been fighting in wars, these last 20-year wars that we have been funding. Let's keep politics out of the VA. These people have had enough politics in their lives. Let's stay focused on their mission to ``care for him who shall have borne the battle,'' as spoken by President Abraham Lincoln. I yield the floor.