White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was asked by a member of the press why the “new DOD (Department of Defense) policy on abortion [is] critical to military readiness.” His answer: It is the government’s ‘foundational sacred obligation’ to kill America’s children in abortion.
On Friday, the U.S. House passed the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) including what have been deemed “controversial amendments” drafted by Republicans. One such amendment seeks to undo the DOD policy that requires reimbursement to military members and their dependents for any travel costs related to an abortion outside of the state in which they are stationed.
Kirby noted that one in five service members are ‘female,’ and that there are also the military wives and daughters whose ‘sacred’ abortions the Biden administration wants to help pay for.
John Kirby goes on a minutes-long tirade trying to explain why abortion is necessary for military readiness. pic.twitter.com/o0ry8lHjNx
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 17, 2023
“We’re an all-volunteer force,” said Kirby. “Nobody’s forcing you to sign up and go. People volunteer to go … you raise your right hand, you say, ‘I’m going to do this for a few years or even my life, and it might cost me my life to do it.'”
He continued, “Our policies… whether it’s about female service members — one in five — or female family members being able to count on the kinds of health care and reproductive care specifically that they need to serve, that is a foundational sacred obligation of military leaders.” (emphasis added)
In other words, the Biden administration believes female service members need and are owed the opportunity to kill their preborn children in order to serve. It is precisely because they have ‘volunteered’ to serve in the military that Kirby thinks the military is ‘obliged’ to allow the slaughtering of their children.
Moreover, the Biden administration believes that abortion is vital for female service members to fulfill their ‘volunteered’ obligation to serve in the military. After all, they may have volunteered to join, but they are obligated to stay. And in order to stay and fulfill their duty, pregnant service members must be ‘good soldiers’ and have abortions.
Kirby noted that pro-life laws may cause a “retention and morale issue.” Female service members who have babies are entitled to parental leave, as are male service members when they become a father. At the end of 2022, the Defense Department issued a new policy to provide 12 weeks of paid, non-chargeable parental leave to service members who have a child through birth, adoption, or a long-term foster care placement of at least 24 months. The 12 weeks of paid leave is in addition to authorized convalescent leave for service members who give birth.
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“Now we get to the real reason he wants women to be able to have abortion in the military. Retention,” said Live Action’s Sami Parker in a response video.
Kirby goes on to say that if the DOD does not pay for abortions it risks “losing talent.” He stated, “We want to keep the people that we get and we want to make sure that they can continue to serve. So it can have an extremely, extremely significant impact on our recruiting and our retention.”
Parker noted, “John just accidentally said the quiet part out loud… Here’s the actual point he was making in this video. When women don’t have abortions, they leave the military to take care of their babies, and that makes the military retention rate lower. Volunteering as a woman to serve our country is an incredible sacrifice. But according to Mr. John Kirby here, women in the military also need the ability to sacrifice their own children for our country.”
According to the pro-abortion group Ibis Reproductive Health, there are about 72 unplanned pregnancies per 1,000 women of reproductive age in the military vs. 45 unplanned pregnancies per 1,000 civilian women.
“Although both planned and unplanned pregnancy can be compatible with a successful military career, each has the potential to lead to a host of negative career impacts including a woman’s voluntary separation from military service or involuntary separation,” said Ibis. “[…] Unintended pregnancy may compromise a woman’s career trajectory in a number of other ways [… and] may also force a woman to leave her military tour early, making career advancement more difficult.”
The pro-abortion DOD policy is likely to lead to coerced abortions as pregnant female service members internalize this expectation to serve at all costs — even the cost of their child’s life. Bethany Saros became pregnant while stationed in Iraq and she said she knew she would have to choose her military career or her baby — her duty to serve over her duty to care for her child.
“One of the stigmas attached to a female getting pregnant on a deployment is the assumption that she did it on purpose,” Saros wrote in an essay for Salon. “It’s whispered about any time the word ‘pregnancy’ comes up right before or during a combat tour. The unspoken code is that a good soldier will have an abortion, continue the mission, and get some sympathy because she chose duty over motherhood. But for the woman who chooses motherhood over duty, well, she must have been trying to get out of deployment.”
Ultimately, Saros knew she wouldn’t have an abortion, so she left the Army, not because of the lack of abortion access but because of the lack of support available for single mothers. Abortion was available, but she didn’t want it and lost her career because of it. But what about the women who do choose abortion in order to be a ‘good soldier’?
According to Jody Duffy, RN, a former Army officer and military spouse of 35 years, it is unknown how many abortions occur among military women. A large number visit the military medical facility to verify they are pregnant, she explained, but they never return. Instead, they likely visit a local abortion facility or wait until they are on leave to have an abortion near home, making it impossible to know how many abortions actually occur among military women. After the abortion, said Duffy:
The pain and grief of abortion only adds more stress and conflict to their lives. Whether it is the female soldier not wanting to sacrifice her military career or feeling pressured to fulfill her duty, or the male soldier feeling fatherhood may stand in the way of his mission, sacrificing our unborn children to abortion is an unfortunate and frequent reality of military life. Abortion decisions often involve varying degrees of pressure and conflict. This predisposes them to have more intense post abortion reactions and even trauma.
Kirby is spinning this pressure to abort into a service — a thank-you gift — that the military is providing its female members. Women are, once again, put in an unjust situation in which they are essentially told, ‘You wanted to be in the military (a traditionally male role) so you should — you must — suppress your fertility.’
It’s the same mentality that many career-driven women are led to believe they must accept — the backed-into-a-corner, non-choice ‘choice’ of abortion. And they are expected to be grateful for this so-called boon of “health care.”
The funding bill for the DOD passed the House in a not-quite party-line vote of 219-210 with four Democrats voting for it and four Republicans voting against it. It will now go to the Senate.
