Congressional Democrats took the first step to force Americans to fund the killing of unborn babies in abortions Monday when a House subcommittee passed a spending bill without the Hyde Amendment.
The U.S. House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies subcommittee approved the 2022 appropriations bill in a voice vote, moving it forward in committee and advancing Democrat leaders’ radical pro-abortion agenda.
However, pro-life Republican lawmakers promised that they will fight to stop it.
“Unless this long-standing compromise protecting human life is restored, this bill should not move forward,” U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, a pro-life Republican from Texas, told committee members. “My colleagues and I are going to have to strongly oppose it because it’s out of step with the views of most Americans. It is just that simple.”
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Granger slammed Democrats for removing the Hyde Amendment, a decades-old, bipartisan measure that prohibits taxpayer funding for most abortions. She said Democrats also removed a measure that protects doctors and nurses from being forced to participate in abortions.
“This is the first time such an extreme position has been taken in this bill,” Granger said.
The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer funding for most abortions in Medicaid and other federal programs. It is credited with saving about 2.4 million babies’ lives, and polls consistently show strong public support for it.
For decades, most Republican and Democrat lawmakers supported the amendment as a regular part of the budget. However, Democrat leaders recently abandoned the public on the issue and sided with the billion-dollar abortion industry instead.
Pro-life leaders criticized House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for trying to violate the consciences of the vast majority of Americans.
“Biden-Pelosi Democrats are scrapping decades of bipartisan consensus to force taxpayers to fund abortion, doubling down on extremism to appease an increasingly radical base,” said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Democrats’ abortion agenda does violence to the poor and vulnerable, devastating the minority communities for whom they claim to advocate.”
Without the Hyde Amendment, Dannenfelser said more unborn babies would be killed in abortions and more mothers would be harmed.
“Yet House Democrats don’t just want to expand abortion on demand through birth at home and abroad – they would also cancel longstanding federal law that protects pro-life doctors, nurses, hospitals and insurers from government coercion to participate in destroying innocent lives,” she continued. “This bill is too extreme to pass the Senate and is a major political liability for pro-abortion Democrats.”
March for Life Action president Tom McClusky said Democrats need to listen to the voters who elected them and reject the radical bill.
“Pro-abortion leadership in the House is making an extremist move by removing the longstanding and popular Hyde Amendment from the newly released LHHS Appropriations bill,” McClusky said. “These pro-abortion politicians should listen to the majority of Americans who consistently support such pro-life protections instead of catering to the abortion lobby.”
Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has saved an estimated 2.4 million babies’ lives, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Polls consistently show that most Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions. A recent Marist poll found that 77 percent of Americans oppose using taxpayer dollars to promote abortion overseas, and 58 percent oppose using taxpayer money to fund abortions in the United States.
A 2016 Harvard/Politico poll found strong support for the Hyde Amendment as well. It also found that voters who make more than $75,000 were more supportive of forcing taxpayers to fund abortions (45 percent in favor), while those who make $25,000 or less were strongly against it (24 percent in favor). In other words, the people most likely to qualify for a Medicaid-covered, taxpayer-funded abortion are more likely to oppose it.
Joe Biden recently rejected the Hyde Amendment after decades of supporting it. His proposed 2022 budget also would force taxpayers to pay for abortions.