Pete Sessions: “this is indeed an important Defense authorization bill. We have worked on it for a long time. Unfortunately, it is now…”

“this is indeed an important Defense authorization bill. We have worked on it for a long time. Unfortunately, it is now being jeopardized by an attempt to shove further and further abortion rights, abortion entitlements forward, to be paid for by the American taxpayers. That is a principle we ought not to confront, in my view. As I see it, there has sort of been a quasi, uneasy truce among those who disagree about abortion. We have said the right exists and people can choose it, but we are not requiring that the American taxpayers pay for it. People on both sides may like to see that changed in various directions, but fundamentally that is where we are. We have an important defense bill being jeopardized by this approach that says that taxpayers have to have the Army, Navy, and Marine hospitals converted into abortion clinics. I do not believe that is popular with the service. I know it is not popular with the physicians in the service. In fact, I am disappointed to hear that the Secretary of Defense--I now hear from this floor--favors this amendment. Once again, we have politicians and bureaucrats in the Department of Defense playing political and ideological games with the morale and esprit de corps of the men and women in the military. I do not appreciate that. Every physician who was called upon previously, when there was a period in which these abortions were to be performed in military hospitals, rejected that.”