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WASHINGTON D.C. -- The House of Representatives today voted to reject an amendment introduced by California Reps. Jane Harman, Susan Davis and Loretta Sanchez, which would have lifted the current ban on privately funded abortions at U.S. military health facilities overseas. Below are Harman's comments, as prepared for delivery on the House floor, in support of the amendment:
"Mr. Chairman, I was proud to serve on the Armed Services Committee for six years. I have supported this amendment since I first offered it in 1997, and I urge its adoption again this year.
"Over 200,000 women serve in the U.S. military and approximately 12,000 currently serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. These women are flying helicopters and fighter aircraft. They are driving support vehicles, patrolling bomb-ridden highways, and shouldering weapons. They serve as an example and an inspiration to the women they meet around the world, and they break down stereotypes held by many men. Yet in some critical ways, women in the military are treated as second-class citizens by their own government.
"Under current law, a servicewoman stationed abroad cannot obtain a safe, legal procedure to terminate a pregnancy in a US military health facility. Instead, she must either take medical leave to return to the US, or gamble with a foreign facility and face the prospect of language barriers, unfamiliar cultural expectations, and vastly different standards with respect to medical care. That is wrong.
"Let me be perfectly clear. The amendment does not force military doctors to perform abortions, nor does it require any taxpayer dollars. What it does, however, is give servicewomen and female military dependents stationed abroad the same constitutional rights as women living here.
"When an individual puts on the uniform of the U.S. Armed Forces, she or he accepts the profound responsibility of defending our nation and protecting our cherished freedoms. A woman who puts her life on the line to defend the fundamental rights of all Americans should not be deprived of her own fundamental right to choose.
"Vote for the Davis-Harman-Sanchez amendment."
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