Abortion is a “precious public good” that must be taxpayer-funded, a columnist at The Guardian argued this week.
Moira Donegan, pushing the left’s devotion to the legalized killing of unborn babies, claimed that America’s radical pro-abortion laws are not enough. The fact that the U.S. is one of only seven countries that allows elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy is not enough.
“Abortion access is a precious public god that is necessary for women to be complete citizens, truly equal in freedom and opportunity to men,” Donegan wrote.
She and the pro-abortion Democrats who soon will take control of the U.S. House want to force taxpayers to fund abortions by ending the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for most abortions through Medicaid.
Until recently, the Hyde Amendment has had strong, bipartisan support. It has saved more than 1 million children from abortion in the past four decades.
However, abortion activists and their friends in the Democratic Party have made it a top priority to repeal the amendment. If they succeed, an estimated 33,000 more unborn babies could be aborted every year in America.
Donegan readily admitted that she does want “your taxes to pay for abortions.”
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“Ending Hyde is the boldest and most compassionate step we can take to protect it,” she claimed.
She attacked the author, Henry Hyde, by suggesting he was going after poor women:
Henry Hyde, the Republican congressman who authored the Amendment in the seventies, famously said of his provision, “I would certainly like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the Medicaid bill.”
He targeted the poor because they were the most vulnerable, and the most easily made to suffer. Decades later, the Amendment has effectively made abortion inaccessible for low-income women – suggesting that the dignity, bodily autonomy, and self-determination that abortion access provides for American women are not rights, but privileges which must be purchased and can, all too easily, be taken away.
Donegan expressed hope that the new Democrat-controlled House could end Hyde next year. She said more people are aware of the amendment now than ever before, and the new Democratic Party platform calls for an end to it.
“… one major abortion rights victory is closer than it ever has been before: the end of the odious Hyde Amendment,” she wrote. “Hyde should be ended because civil freedoms should not depend on a person’s sex, or on how much money she has. And it should be ended because our laws should be aimed at helping Americans exercise their full rights, maintain their full dignity, and fulfill their full potential.”
Fortunately, it is not likely to occur next year. Pro-life Republicans will be in control of the U.S. Senate in 2019, and President Donald Trump’s administration has been working to stop taxpayer-funding for abortions.
Public opinion remains solidly against taxpayer-funded abortions, too. A Marist poll found that more than two-thirds of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, including a majority of women and people who identify as pro-choice. A 2016 Politico/Harvard University poll also found that just 36 percent of likely voters support taxpayer funding for abortions, while 58 percent oppose it.
