House Republicans Tell Nancy Pelosi: We Will Oppose Any Bill to Force Americans to Fund Abortions

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jan 26, 2021   |   11:09AM   |   Washington, DC

Republicans in Congress told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday that they will stand up for the vast majority of Americans by opposing her plans to force taxpayers to fund abortions.

The Republican lawmakers made their intentions to fight for the Hyde Amendment clear in a letter to Pelosi and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, RealClearPolitics reports.

“We pledge to vote against any government funding bill that eliminates or weakens the Hyde Amendment or other current-law, pro-life appropriations provisions,” they wrote.

The Hyde Amendment, which has been in place since 1976, prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions in Medicaid and other federal programs. It has saved an estimated 2.4 million babies from abortions, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

“Repealing these pro-life provisions would destroy nearly half a century of bipartisan consensus,” the Republicans’ letter continues. “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.”

For decades, the Hyde Amendment had strong bipartisan support. Polls consistently show that most Americans still support it, but Democrat leaders – who have close ties to the billion-dollar abortion industry – recently abandoned the popular position on the issue and now want to force taxpayers to pay for abortions.

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Pelosi recently said ending the amendment is “long overdue,” and, in December, a House subcommittee held a hearing to discuss forcing taxpayers to fund abortions.

“This is the last year,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut Democrat, during the hearing. “The time has come in this current moment to reckon with the norm, with the status quo.”

Democrat leaders are framing the issue as a matter of racial and economic justice. Their argument is based on the idea that women need to be able to abort their unborn babies to succeed, and poor women, many of them black and Latino, may not be able to afford abortions on their own.

But Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks, R-Indiana, and the GOP House caucus promised to stand up against the Democrats’ radical pro-abortion agenda and fight for the rights of unborn babies and Americans, according to the report.

“Millions of Americans do not want their hard-earned money used to pay for abortions,” Banks said in a statement. “My colleagues and I demand congressional leaders protect the ban on taxpayer-funded abortions and save the Hyde Amendment.”

Democrats hold a slim majority in the House after Republicans picked up seats in the November election. The party split is currently 221-211 with three vacancies.

President Joe Biden also wants to end the Hyde Amendment. The Democrat politician used to support it, but he changed his position on the presidential campaign trail.

Most Americans do not want their tax dollars to pay for the killing of unborn babies in abortions, including many Democrat voters. Recent polls from Marist and Harvard University/Politico show strong opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions. According to Marist, six in 10 Americans (60 percent) oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, while the Harvard poll found that 58 percent oppose it.

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 thousands of elective abortions annually 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.