Roger Marshall: “I am certainly honored to be here and stand beside my colleague and friend, Coach Tommy Tuberville, as we work through a…”

“I am certainly honored to be here and stand beside my colleague and friend, Coach Tommy Tuberville, as we work through a very, very challenging situation regarding our military nominations. I have tried to listen to the arguments from my colleagues across the aisle, and one thing I want to just point out, a very simple solution, is to bring these to the floor and give us a vote on them. I am happy to stay here tonight and vote. Happy to come in early tomorrow and vote as well. It is certainly something within the power of this body to do that. So that is one simple solution. Next, I want to point out that the Pentagon is the one that picked this fight. They are the one that changed the policy. And in my opinion, this is an unlawful policy that they are ignoring the Hyde amendment, that they are using Federal funds to aid and abet in abortions. As I dug a little deeper into this, I was shocked to find out that the Pentagon's policy allows more time off for an abortion than for a person who needs to go attend to a family funeral or to a marriage. And I might add, of course, the military, I assume, is not paying for the travel of that soldier going back home to get married or to attend a family funeral. There is lots of arguments why we think this is right, but I think the ultimate argument is why Coach Tuberville and I are here is that we believe in the sanctity of life, that we believe that life begins at conception.…”