WASHINGTON — Senator Tommy Tuberville says he’ll continue to block hundreds of U.S. military promotions unless the Biden administration abolishes its new abortion policy and the Senate votes on the issue because “we are not a Communist country.”
“They are starting to believe me that I meant what I said,” the Alabama Republican said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power.” “We’re not going to have any movement on my side unless they change it back and let’s vote on it. And if it passes, it passes, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”
The Pentagon announced last year that it would pay allowances for troops and their dependents traveling to obtain abortions in places where they remain legal because of concern that the Supreme Court’s decision to end a constitutional right to abortion put pressure on military readiness and recruitment.
Tuberville began his freeze on confirmation votes in February. With more than 300 promotions now blocked, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps don’t have confirmed service chiefs and are led by acting commanders. In October, the military may lack a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because General Mark Milley must leave that post when his term expires.
Tuberville — a former Auburn University football coach whose father was in the military, but didn’t serve himself — said that an abortion policy that had been in place since 1984 worked “perfect.”…
