Pro-abortion politicians in Congress are moving forward with their promise to force taxpayer-funded abortion on the American people. Last year, House leadership vowed to challenge the Hyde Amendment in the 2022 federal budget, and according to new reports, they are — but they aren’t stopping there. Instead, they’re seeking to remove virtually all restrictions on taxpayer-funded abortion.
President Biden received a letter this week from the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, the Democratic Women’s Caucus leaders, and notable members of both the House and Senate, including Tammy Duckworth, Jackie Speier, and Dianne Feinstein. The letter requests that the Hyde Amendment be overturned and also calls for the elimination of the Weldon Amendment, the Helms Amendment, and all other restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortion in the federal budget.
The Hyde Amendment is not a law, but a rider that has been added to every appropriations bill since 1976, and it bans federal taxpayers from being forced to fund most abortions. The Weldon Amendment protects pro-life health care organizations from being penalized for not providing abortion funding, while the Helms Amendment bans federal dollars from funding foreign abortions. The Helms Amendment has been in place since the 1970s as well, while the Weldon Amendment is relatively newer, enacted in 2005.
READ: SAVE HYDE: Taxpayer-funded abortion won’t help poor women. It will only help the abortion industry.
While pro-abortion lawmakers are urging Biden to embrace this extreme move, pro-life politicians are also begging leadership not to do so. In a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), numerous members of both the House and the Senate pointed out that these amendments should remain in place, and have historically been supported by both parties — including, at one point, by Biden himself.
“Repealing these pro-life provisions would destroy nearly half a century of bipartisan consensus,” the pro-life letter read. “Each year since 1976, Congress has included Hyde protections in annually enacted appropriations. No president in American history has ever vetoed an appropriations bill due to its inclusion of the Hyde Amendment. Moreover, President Obama maintained the Hyde Amendment in each of his budget proposals. As recent as June 2019, former Vice President Joe Biden supported the Hyde Amendment and acknowledged that it works harmoniously with federal funding for women’s healthcare.”
Further, the pro-life politicians point out that the American people overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer-funded abortion. “Years of public polling indicate that repealing the Hyde Amendment is opposed by most of the American public,” it continued. “Congressional Democrats now seek to further erode public trust in government by ignoring mainstream public opinion in favor of placating the radical Left.”
While abortion supporters pretend that taxpayer-funded abortion is a matter of health, the reality is that abortion is not health care — and reversing Hyde means higher profits for the abortion industry, not better health care. Meanwhile, the Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved over 2.4 million lives, meaning the decision to save it or get rid of it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
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