White House national security spokesperson John Kirby issued a full-throated defense of the military’s abortion travel policy on Monday, in the face of Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military promotions in protest of that policy. Thanks to Tuberville, the position of Marine commandant is vacant for the first time since the Civil War—just one of more than 270 military promotions Tuberville is blocking.
Tuberville is the one who needs to answer to that, but Kirby was asked to defend the abortion travel policy’s importance to military readiness, and he was, he said, “really glad” to have the opportunity. Kirby described the “foundational sacred obligation” of military leaders to ensure that service members and their families can “count on the kinds of health care and reproductive care specifically that they need to serve.” And, he said, it becomes a military readiness issue if women in the military, or the wives of service members, are not willing to continue their service because they won’t be able to get that care.
You can see much of his answer in the video below, and read a transcript. In a moment not captured in that video, Kirby had additional comments, reported by The Hill. “You go where you’re told, that’s the way orders work,” he said. “What happens if you get assigned to a state like Alabama, which has a pretty restrictive abortion law in place? And you’re concerned about your reproductive care? What do you do? Do you say no and you get out? Well, some people may decide to do that, and what does that mean? That means we lose talent, important talent.”
“It can have an extremely, extremely significant impact on our recruiting and our retention,” he added. “It’s just the right darn thing to do for people who raise their hand and agree to serve in the military.”
From the video:
I’m really glad you asked that question. No, I mean, I really am. One in five members of the U.S. military are women—20%. And we’re an all-volunteer force. Nobody’s forcing you to sign up and go. People volunteer to go. You raise your right hand and you say, “I’m going to do this for a few years or even for my life. And it might cost me my life to do it.”
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And when you sign up and you make that contract, you have every right to expect that the organization—in this case, the military—is going to take care of you and they’re going to take care of your family. And they’re going to make sure that you can serve with dignity and respect no matter who you are or who you love or how you worship or don’t. And our policies, whether they’re diversity, inclusion, and equity or whether they’re about transgender individuals who qualify physically and mentally to serve, to be able to do it with dignity. Or 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 across the river, and I’ve seen it myself. And it matters, because it says we’re invested in you because you are being willing to invest in us. You’re investing your life, your family’s livelihood with us. We owe you that back in return.
I had a chance to go to meet with some military spouses here at the White House. Some were active duty, some were spouses, all were women. And to a one, they told me that abortion laws in this country that are now being passed are absolutely having an effect on their willingness to continue serving in uniform or to encourage or discourage, in this case, their spouses, so if you don’t think there’s going to be a retention and a morale issue, think again because it’s already having that effect.