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Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I am certainly honored to be here and stand beside my colleague and friend, Coach Tommy Tuberville, as we work through a very, very challenging situation regarding our military nominations.

I have tried to listen to the arguments from my colleagues across the aisle, and one thing I want to just point out, a very simple solution, is to bring these to the floor and give us a vote on them.

I am happy to stay here tonight and vote. Happy to come in early tomorrow and vote as well. It is certainly something within the power of this body to do that. So that is one simple solution.

Next, I want to point out that the Pentagon is the one that picked this fight. They are the one that changed the policy. And in my opinion, this is an unlawful policy that they are ignoring the Hyde amendment, that they are using Federal funds to aid and abet in abortions.

As I dug a little deeper into this, I was shocked to find out that the Pentagon's policy allows more time off for an abortion than for a person who needs to go attend to a family funeral or to a marriage.

And I might add, of course, the military, I assume, is not paying for the travel of that soldier going back home to get married or to attend a family funeral.

There is lots of arguments why we think this is right, but I think the ultimate argument is why Coach Tuberville and I are here is that we believe in the sanctity of life, that we believe that life begins at conception.

I think if my colleagues across the aisle would sit and listen for a second, if you truly believe that life begins at conception, I don't see how you could support abortions, let alone using Federal dollars to pay for these abortions.

I remember my second year of medical school, and I was assuming I was going to be a family practice doctor. We had been married for about a year and a half, had our first baby. And the second that little girl made her first cries and I saw that bond between my daughter and my wife and every time I delivered a baby since then, I have always just been amazed at that bond between a baby and a mom, that agape love that a mom shows a baby. It was at that moment that my daughter was delivered that I decided that that was what I wanted to do for a living.

As an obstetrician, a person who believes that life begins at conception, that is why this issue is so important to us. That is why this is such an important issue that we are willing to hold up these nominations.

I think what we are asking is a simple solution: Let's take these flag officers and these generals, and let's vote on them. We can take these on. I think there are only 250 of them or so. I think we can take those on, and then let's do them.

If not, we are asking the Pentagon to go back to the previous policy and stop their unlawful use of American taxpayer dollars violating the Hyde amendment for these abortions.

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