Should military hospitals be used to save lives or to kill unborn babies? The U.S. Senate may soon take action to overturn long-standing policy by sanctioning the performance of abortions in domestic and overseas military facilities–effectively turning military hospitals and other facilities into abortion clinics. This would be the largest expansion of abortion availability since the original Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. Overnight, your tax dollars will create 423 new abortion clinics. While much of the media attention on this bill has focused on the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” debate and now amnesty for illegal aliens, many Americans should be deeply concerned that this bill turns our military healthcare system into domestic and international abortion providers.

This past May, when the Senate Armed Services Committee considered the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) offered an amendment to end the current prohibition on performing abortions in military hospitals. If enacted, this amendment would overturn a law that has been in place since 1996, signed into law by President Clinton.

Military healthcare centers — which are dedicated to healing and caring for life — should not facilitate the taking of an innocent human life: an unborn child. Allowing abortions in military facilities will continue to strain already burdened medical personnel who are working to save the lives of our men and women in service. At a time when our nation is at war, are we really going to divert scarce personnel and resources for elective abortions?

This change in policy will also likely hurt recruitment and retention of military medical professionals—possibly driving many health care providers out of the military if they have conscience objections to performing abortion. When President Clinton allowed abortions in military facilities from 1993 to 1996, many military physicians (as well as nurses and support staff) refused to perform or assist in elective abortions. In response, the Administration hired civilians to do abortions. If the Burris amendment were enacted, not only would taxpayer funded facilities be used to support abortion on demand, but tax dollars could also be used to search, hire, and transport new personnel just so abortions could be performed.

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Over at Examiner, Byron York asks the fairly obvious question:

What does a hate crimes bill have to do with money for U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Nothing, except that the National Defense Authorization Act, which will win final passage in Congress and be sent to the president’s desk this week, also contains the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which Democrats placed inside the defense measure over Republican objections.

The crime bill — which would broaden the protected classes for hate crimes to include sexual orientation and “gender identity,” which the bill defines as a victim’s “actual or perceived gender-related characteristics” — passed the House earlier this year as a stand-alone measure. But it’s never had the votes to succeed by itself in the Senate. So over the summer Democrats, with the power of their 60-vote majority, attached it to the defense bill.

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