WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville claimed a GOP-led effort to undo the Biden administration’s policy to extend abortion services to veterans was “not about abortion” but rather creating policies the right way and the balance of power in government.
“We lost yesterday,” Tuberville, the Republican who led the effort to reverse the policy, told NewsNation’s Adrienne Bankert on “Morning in America.” He continued, “We had a couple of Republicans that voted against us.”
The Senate rejected 51-48 the GOP bid to scrap the expanded services on Wednesday, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voting with Democrats to preserve the rule.
The September 2022 rule was put in place as Democrats have tried to find ways to maintain abortion access after the Supreme Court last year overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed the right to an abortion. The Biden administration says the rule is in direct response to new restrictions on abortion in some states that are “creating serious risks to the life and health of our Nation’s veterans.”
The policy would allow the VA to provide access to abortion counseling and also some abortions if the life or health of the parent would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term. The rule, which applies regardless of state laws, would also allow abortion access in the case of rape or incest.
But Tuberville claimed that the vote wasn’t really about abortion, but rather about voting with one’s party. He said it’s something he’s noticed for the past two years in the Senate.
“In 1992, as you said, the VA Health Care Act was passed and passed by the Democrats, they said we will not have abortions in the VA,” he said. “Well, all of a sudden, after Roe v. Wade goes down, which kicked the abortion vote back down to the states, Joe Biden says we’re just gonna go ahead and do abortions in the VA, we’re not going to listen to Congress.”
He explained that part of his fight was making sure that Congress is able to do its job without the White House dictating legislation.
“If we’re not going to legislate from Congress, and let the White House legislate, let’s lock the doors of this building and go home and save people a lot of money because we’re not doing our job here,” Tuberville said.
Tuberville said he hopes that members of Congress legislate by the people that they represent, not by what the legislators want.
“I’m not representing me, I’m representing everybody back in Alabama. And we forget that sometimes, you know, up here, we just kind of vote by our conscience,” he said.
The senator also vouched for term limits in Congress, saying there are representatives and senators who have been in their positions for decades.
“We need term limits. We need new blood up here. We need people that are making decisions, not worried about getting reelected,” he said.
Tuberville continued, “It’s not about abortion, we’ve had an abortion policy and in the military for years and years. We’ve done abortions, and we’ve had a policy for that.”
The biggest worry for Tuberville is the executive branch making all the decisions and going around the other branches of government to create and change policies.
“It’s about doing the proper thing but doing it the right way,” he said.
In a statement of policy, the White House said Biden would veto the GOP resolution if it had come to his desk.
The effort to undo the rule “undermines patient safety and invites political interference into deeply personal decisions made by pregnant veterans,” the White House said, “threatening their health and lives.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.