(NEW YORK, C-Fam) The Georgia runoff election for the U.S. Senate handed Democrats control of both Houses of the Congress for the next two years at least. It means every U.S. pro-life law and regulation in the books will likely be repealed, including laws that have had longtime bipartisan support.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have both said they support repealing the Helms Amendment and the Hyde Amendment, which prohibit the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund abortion overseas and at home.
It is possible a Biden-Harris administration may attempt to create abortion mandates in federal and international programs, just like the Obama-Biden administration did with Obamacare and reproductive health mandates in anti-trafficking programming.
The only thing holding back such a massive sea-change in pro-abortion legislation is the Senate filibuster. When the filibuster is invoked, 60 votes from U.S. Senators are required to end debate and call a vote on the Senate floor. But Democrats have openly spoken about doing away with the filibuster now that they control the Congress.
Even if a repeal of the Helms and Hyde amendments is not successful, a Biden-Harris administration may attempt to reinterpret these longstanding laws to allow abortion in some cases through new regulation and internal policies.
READ: Abortion advocates demand that U.S. increase efforts to advance abortion internationally
Emails from the John Podesta Wikileaks hack in 2016 document how the Obama-Biden administration planned to reinterpret the Helms Amendment to allow funding for abortion in humanitarian situations like war and natural disasters. Government insiders confirmed this to the Friday Fax repeatedly at the time. While the administration ultimately did not go through with the plan, a Biden administration, like Clinton before him, is expected to deliver a reinterpretation of Helms to allow abortion funding.
Once abortion funding is allowed through such a reinterpretation of the Helms amendment, there is nothing to stop abortion from becoming a requirement of U.S. foreign assistance. It could happen with the stroke of a pen. The Biden administration could simply add abortion to the list of essential services that U.S. foreign aid recipients are required to provide.
Making abortion a requirement of U.S. foreign aid programs would shut out pro-lifers from delivering aid to the poor overseas. This might include Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, and any other groups with pro-life convictions or moral objections to abortion.
The last time Democrats controlled both houses of the Congress in 2009 they counted among them at least 40 pro-life Democrats. They held-up the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, for several months trying to get assurances from the Obama-Biden administration that Americans would not be forced to fund or perform abortions against their conscience.
This time around, the entire Democratic party is aligned with the abortion cause. Since 2009, the Democrats further entrenched abortion as a priority of their party. They have made repealing longstanding U.S. restrictions in federal law on funding abortion through U.S. taxpayer dollars a priority.
Abortion is now a litmus test for Democrats, though the Democratic party leadership denies this. In fact, the party has sought to purge its ranks of any pro-life politicians by running primary challengers backed by the deep pockets of the abortion industry and other progressive donors to the Democratic party.
Editor’s Note: Stefano Gennarini, J.D. writes for C-Fam. This article first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-Fam (Center for Family & Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (https://c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission.”
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