{"id":14862,"date":"2024-01-31T00:47:30","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T00:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/31\/sen-thune-challenges-biden-admins-pentagon-abortion-policy-demands-protection-for-military-leaders\/"},"modified":"2024-01-31T00:47:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T00:47:30","slug":"sen-thune-challenges-biden-admins-pentagon-abortion-policy-demands-protection-for-military-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/31\/sen-thune-challenges-biden-admins-pentagon-abortion-policy-demands-protection-for-military-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen Thune challenges Biden admin\u2019s Pentagon abortion policy, demands protection for military leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

FIRST ON FOX:<\/strong> Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., is urging the Pentagon to safeguard senior military leaders from enforcing the Department of Defense\u2019s (DOD\u2019s) abortion travel policy if it conflicts with their beliefs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He proposes that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin should personally take on the responsibility of approving service members\u2019 requests to travel for abortion procedures.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Thune will send a letter to Austin urging him to allow military leaders to defer to him.<\/p>\n

\u2018Their responsibilities already require tremendous testing of the soul and spirit,\u2019 Thune wrote. \u2018It is a mistake to tax them further by compelling them to play even a perfunctory role in the Biden administration\u2019s abortion leave and travel policy.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added, \u2018Implementation of this ill-advised policy should fall squarely on you, and you alone.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), chairwoman of the pro-life caucus, also signed the letter.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Biden administration has, regrettably, made it abundantly clear it is willing to flout longstanding federal policy to enable the use of taxpayer funds to support all aspects of an abortion but the procedure itself,\u2019 Thune wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The letter notes that under federal law, the DOD accommodates sincere beliefs \u2014 moral or religious principles \u2014 and seeks clarification on scenarios warranting denial of accommodation.<\/p>\n

\u2018We recently witnessed an exodus of experienced professionals from our armed forces who chose to follow their conscience when their pandemic-era religious accommodation requests were summarily rejected,\u2019 Thune wrote. \u2018Failure to learn from such errors and honor the deeply held convictions of our servicemembers may spur more untimely separations.\u2019<\/p>\n

Thune is asking the DOD to provide information within 30 days regarding the process for facilitating conscience protections, the number of department workers seeking such protections or deferring approvals, the roles of individuals in the approval process, circumstances leading to refusal of conscience protections, and whether any accommodations have been denied to date.<\/p>\n

In December, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., ended his monthslong hold on hundreds of military promotions in protest of the abortion policy, which compensates servicemembers for costs associated with traveling to undergo the procedure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tuberville began blocking President Biden\u2019s military nominations in February 2023 over what he said was the Pentagon\u2019s \u2018illegal\u2019 policy of providing travel expense reimbursement to service members who seek an abortion. The Biden administration adopted the policy last year in response to the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and held the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIRST ON FOX: Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., is urging the Pentagon to safeguard senior military leaders from enforcing the Department of Defense\u2019s (DOD\u2019s) abortion travel policy if it conflicts with their beliefs.\u00a0 He proposes that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin should personally take on the responsibility of approving service members\u2019 requests to travel for <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}