Pro-life congressional leaders praise pledge to oppose federal abortion funding

Washington D.C., Jan 15, 2022 / 06:00 am (CNA).

One hundred and eighty one members of the House of Representatives signed a letter praising the pro-life leadership of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as promising to vote against any appropriations bill that does not include a prohibition of the use of federal funds for abortion.

“Thank you for the consistent pro-life leadership you have shown even as House and Senate Democrats have demonstrated their plan to use Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Appropriations legislation to strip out longstanding pro-life protections that have been in place for decades,” the House members wrote in a letter. The letter was led by Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and Jim Banks (R-IN), who leads the Republican Study Committee.

“For decades, federal appropriations legislation has included language to protect taxpayer money from funding and facilitating the killing of children alive but not yet born,” they said. “The most famous of these protections, the Hyde Amendment, prevents direct taxpayer funding of abortion through programs like Medicaid.”

The Hyde Amendment is a rider to appropriations bills. It has received consistent bipartisan support since it was first written in 1976.

“Abortion is not health care unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished—pregnancy is not a disease,” said Smith. “Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion nor should anyone or any entity be coerced against their conscience to perform or facilitate the killing of an unborn child.”

Banks concurred, saying that removing the Hyde Amendment would be both “wrong and unpopular.”

“But today’s Democrat party only caters to their far-left base who demand the government provide taxpayer-funded abortions up until the point of birth,” he said. “Pro-life conservatives stand united against their radical agenda.”

In 2016, the Democratic National Committee’s official party platform called, for the first time, for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment.

“Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for abortion domestically or internationally,” said the letter.

“The consciences of health care providers who do not want to participate in abortion should be respected. Funding should not go to international organizations that are complicit in forced abortion and involuntary sterilization,” referring to what is commonly known as the “Mexico City Policy.”

As president, Donald Trump (R) expanded the Mexico City Policy. When President Joe Biden (D) was inaugurated, he repealed the policy in the first days of his presidency, similar to what his Democratic predecessors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did during their presidencies.

The letter called for “all longstanding pro-life provisions to be retained” in the appropriation bills, noting that the majority of Americans are opposed to the use of taxpayer funding to pay for abortions.

The lawmakers quoted then-Senator Biden, who, in a 1994 letter to one of his constituents, wrote “those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.” 

Biden repeatedly voted for and voiced public support for the Hyde Amendment throughout his time serving as a member of the Senate. In 2019, over a 24-hour period, Biden announced that he no longer supported the Hyde Amendment.