The abortion industry has long been fighting to have the Hyde Amendment, which prevents taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in the United States, overturned for years. Though Hyde used to enjoy bipartisan support, pro-abortion Democrats have been staunchly against it in recent years. That, however, is not enough for abortion advocates; they’re also targeting the Helms amendment in an attempt to have Americans fund abortion everywhere.
In a new op-ed for The Hill, Akila Radhakrishnan and Anu Kumar urged the Biden administration to put an end to the Helms Amendment, which prevents taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in other countries around the world. And they are hardly just two concerned citizens; Radhakrishnan is president of the Global Justice Center, a human rights organization that also promotes abortion around the world. Kumar is president and CEO of Ipas, the creator of manual vacuum aspiration abortion kits promoted and sold around the world, particularly in Africa and developing countries.
“[N]o platform for abortion rights is complete without a confrontation with the Helms Amendment, arguably the U.S. abortion policy with the most expansive legacy of death and suffering,” the pair began, neglecting to acknowledge that abortion itself literally causes death every single time it is committed.
“It’s impossible to overstate the harm five decades of Helms enforcement has wrought on the world,” they continued. “It has devastated global health networks, caused maternal deaths that disproportionately impact women of color, and contributed to the stagnation of maternal mortality rates globally.”
However, research does not support the popular pro-abortion claim that abortion is the answer to high maternal mortality rates — in either the United States or abroad. Notably, Ethiopia specifically legalized abortion to lower maternal mortality rates but instead, the rates increased. A 10-year study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMJ Open found that in Mexico, “states with less permissive abortion legislation exhibited lower MMR” than in those where abortion was allowed.”
There is simply no factual data to back up the claim that abortion will prevent women from dying pregnancy-related deaths, yet abortion advocates continue to propagandistically repeat it.
READ: Abortion is winning at the ballot box, primarily because of deception
“For 50 years, every president has allowed the Helms Amendment to decimate the health and rights of pregnant people around the world,” they concluded. “We shouldn’t allow President Biden to claim support for reproductive rights without a truly comprehensive commitment to ending one of the United States’ longest-running violations of the human right to abortion.”
Contrary to their claims, pro-abortion politicians have already tried to get rid of Helms, in both the 2021 budget proposal and the 2022 budget proposal. The problem is that this is another form of pro-abortion extremism that most Americans simply do not support; even if Americans want abortion to be legal, they largely support restrictions on it, including restrictions on taxpayer funding. And there is no “human right” to abortion, as abortion is the direct and intentional taking of a human life.
As usual, the abortion industry is out-of-touch and concerned about padding their own wallets above all else; after all, who would benefit more from increased taxpayer funding of abortion overseas than two international abortion groups?
