Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania for the time.

Hopefully, at some point on this floor, we will be able to debate the Defense appropriations bill. That bill and this bill that we have the motion on, the NDAA, have extreme social policy riders that make bipartisan cooperation just impossible.

The restricting rider that we are focusing on today is in both bills, and it stops servicemembers, civilians, and dependents from seeking basic reproductive healthcare. As the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania pointed out, when certain care is not available where a person is stationed, they have the flexibility of going to seek out that healthcare. The DOD's current policy is totally under Federal law and is totally legal.

Another misnomer that I hear quite often sometimes is it is undermining the Hyde amendment. Well, it doesn't do that either. The Hyde amendment allows for abortion services in certain circumstances. This would be a ban if a woman was stationed at a military post where we don't even offer obstetrics and gynecology, where she would have to seek care in another State, and many of these States have limited and put so many restrictions in place that the doctors are fearful of performing even procedures after miscarriage or the procedures that were pointed out with the woman in Texas. They have to go someplace else to receive the service, even services that are provided under the Hyde amendment.

Make no mistake, I don't support the Hyde amendment, but that is the least we should be able to do.

As has been pointed out, nearly 20 percent of the people who serve in our military are women, 80,000 of them are in States that restrict abortions, and our troops don't get to choose where they are stationed.

We need to make sure that our servicewomen are not treated as second- class citizens and that they have full access to their reproductive rights. In the past and in the future, women have faced barriers to reach their full potential. Let's not put up another barrier.

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