Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on March 2020

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as chair of the Readiness Subcommittee, I rise today deeply opposed to the dangerous posturing of my colleague from Alabama in playing with our national security. That is what it is coming down to.

In the Senate, we have a long history of bipartisan support for our armed services and our servicemembers. What is not usual is for one Member of the Senate to put a hold on hundreds of nominees--let's face it--for political and ideological reasons. I don't know how else you would characterize his actions.

So while we may disagree about military policy--obviously, we do--we have always kept the readiness of our forces above politics. Now the Senator from Alabama is intentionally politicizing our military. The Senators can stand there all they want and say they are not politicizing.

Oh, really? I beg to differ.

The Senator is blocking numerous promotions simply because he is upset that the DOD is doing its part to protect our servicemembers and address their needs. Our servicemembers who are women have a need to access appropriate reproductive care.

Now, this wasn't an issue before because--guess what--we didn't have a Supreme Court that upended almost 50 years of a constitutional right that women in this country had. Why is this important? Because we never had a Dobbs decision before. But now we have, and that is what we have to live with.

Because of the Senator's reckless posturing and unyielding stance, the promotions of more than 160 flag officers--men and women who have dedicated their lives to serving our country--are already being delayed, and these delays pose a grave and growing threat to our national security and the readiness of our troops. In the next several months, we are set to consider the nominations of nearly half--nearly half--of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including the Chairman.

At a time when we face growing threats around the world, leaving these roles unfulfilled would have catastrophic consequences for our military and our national security. Just yesterday, Secretary Austin was before the Armed Services Committee, on which Senator Tuberville and I both sit. Secretary Austin told us that ``not approving the recommendations for promotions actually creates a ripple effect through the forces that makes us far less ready than we need to be.''

What is worse is that this hold is all because the Department of Defense is allowing servicemembers to access reproductive healthcare-- something well within the Department's authority. As a result, as I mentioned, of the Supreme Court's disastrous Dobbs decision, nearly 80,000 women servicemembers--do you know what? If the Senator cares about recruiting and retaining servicemembers, how about wanting to retain and recruit female servicemembers?

So with this Dobbs decision, we now have 80,000 women servicemembers who are stationed in States where they can't fully access reproductive care. To address this crisis brought on by the Supreme Court's decision, the DOD adopted a commonsense policy to allow those servicemembers to travel to get the care they need.

To be clear, this policy does not cover the cost of abortions. We are not talking about taxpayer-paid abortions. It would be really great if we could just adhere to facts. The Senator says that this is really a roundabout way to pay for our abortions. No. This is a very direct way to meet the needs of our female servicemembers to get the healthcare and the reproductive care that they so plainly need.

Secretary Austin has said that the health of our servicemembers must be a top priority. Who can argue with that? I couldn't agree more. I applaud Secretary Austin's leadership on this issue, but, clearly, my colleague from Alabama is more concerned with pushing his ideological agenda than the realities our troops face.

Our servicemembers put their lives on the line for our country. They deserve better than to be used as political props. Frankly, this obsession that the Republicans have to have power and control over women's bodies--what is up with that?

For the sake of our country and our troops, I urge my colleague from Alabama and my colleague from Utah to drop this dangerous crusade and confirm the military nominations en bloc.

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, we are going to be working on the NDAA, and I suggest to my colleague to go ahead and put an amendment--or whatever he wants--in the NDAA. Then let's take a vote on whether or not this policy should stand.

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