W. Todd Akin: “the proposal, of course, before us as we have heard is basically going to turn our overseas military medical facilities…”

“the proposal, of course, before us as we have heard is basically going to turn our overseas military medical facilities into abortion clinics. The point has been made that we allow abortions in 50 States, but it is also clear that we only allow abortions in one out of 10 hospitals. Yet with this particular amendment, we are going to force our military hospitals to perform these abortions. This was tried before in 1993 to 1996 under President Clinton's policies, and it was rather unsuccessful. First of all, it was very hard to find obstetricians and gynecologists stationed overseas who wanted to perform the abortions in the first place. Very, very few abortions were actually conducted. Part of that is because there are laws against abortion in many foreign countries, and so even there we would not be able to do the abortion. Now there is the idea, or the inference, that there is some necessity for these abortions in military hospitals. But the necessity does not exist. This is something that can be done as an elective procedure. It can be done by people coming to our country. I would urge my colleagues to vote in opposition to the amendment.”