Democrat leaders plan to force American taxpayers to pay for the killing of unborn babies in elective abortions if they win majorities in the U.S. House and Senate in November.
Their goal to end the Hyde Amendment, backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, could lead to 60,000 more abortions every year in America.
Democrat leaders in the House admitted that they plan to push aggressively for taxpayer-funded abortions starting next year — which, if successful, “would mark one of the most significant changes in abortion policy in decades,” Los Angeles Times reports.
The Hyde Amendment, which has been in place since 1976, prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions in federal health care programs. It has saved an estimated 2.4 million babies from abortions, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
For decades, the amendment had strong bipartisan support in Congress, and most Americans still support it. But now pro-abortion groups and the Democrat political leaders are pushing to end it.
Here’s more from the report:
The plan to oppose the restriction on government money reflects the dramatic and widespread reversal of opinion on the subject that Democrats have undergone in the last five years. What was once viewed as an acceptable compromise is now widely seen among Democrats as a prime example of systemic racism that unfairly hurts poor women and women of color by banning abortion in most cases for Medicaid patients.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who leads the subcommittee that funds federal health programs, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told a small group of lawmakers last month that they would not add the prohibition to any government funding bill beginning next year, according to Lee and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who co-chair the House Pro-Choice Caucus.
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill did not comment on the remark. When asked about the prospects for next year, he said: “The House will work its will.”
The article should specify that it is Democrat leaders who want to end the Hyde Amendment. Polls consistently show most Americans, including many Democrat voters, oppose taxpayer-funded abortions. Even some Democrats in Congress are not on board with the unpopular idea.
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DeGette told the newspaper that they do not have the 218 votes necessary to pass legislation supporting taxpayer-funded abortions in the House. But Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden recently flip-flopped on the issue, and she expressed hope that others soon will follow.
The U.S. Senate, which has a narrow Republican majority, does not have enough votes to pass the radical pro-abortion plan either. DeLauro said Democrat leaders would have tried to end the Hyde Amendment this year, but Republicans in the Senate got in the way.
Party leaders hope for a full Democrat take-over of Congress in November, but taxpayer-funded abortions is not a winning issue.
“This is a terribly reckless push on the part of Democrats to force taxpayers to fund abortion on demand,” Mallory Quigley, spokeswoman for the Susan B. Anthony List, told the newspaper. “People don’t want to be complicit in abortion with their taxpayer dollars, regardless of how they identify, pro-life or pro-choice.”
According to a June poll by SBA List, a majority (50 percent) of voters – including 55 percent of independents — said they would be less likely to support Biden because of his support for taxpayer-funded abortions. Recent polls from Marist and Harvard University/Politico show similarly strong opposition. According to Marist, six in 10 Americans (60 percent) oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, while the Harvard poll found that 58 percent oppose it.
Abortion activists and Democrat leaders are trying to sway voters by portraying it as a race issue.
“It’s an issue of racial justice and it’s an issue of discrimination against low-income women, women of color, women who don’t have access to what middle- and upper-income women have in terms of the choice to have an abortion,” said U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, a pro-abortion Democrat who opposes the Hyde Amendment.
But black women already have a disproportionately high number of abortions compared to other racial groups in America. Census data indicates that African Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, but they have nearly 40 percent of all abortions. And New York City health statistics indicate that more African American babies are aborted in the city than are born each year.
What’s more, research suggests low-income women do not want taxpayer-funded abortions. According to the Harvard/Politico poll, voters who make more than $75,000 were more supportive of ending the Hyde Amendment (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 the ones who oppose it the most.
If Democrats end the Hyde Amendment, Americans could be forced to pay for 60,000 elective abortions through Medicaid as well as through insurance to Peace Corps volunteers, federal workers and military members. Currently, the amendment prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or risks to the mother’s life.
