Catholic bishops are urging Americans to make their voices heard to Congress as Democrat leaders push plans to force taxpayers to pay for abortions.
A new petition from the Pro-Life Secretariat of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops asks lawmakers to continue to support the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions in Medicaid and other federal programs, the Catholic News Service reports.
“Taxpayer dollars should NOT pay for abortion,” the bishops’ Respect Life office wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “Tell Congress not to take innocent lives!”
Rachel Hendricks, Respect Life coordinator for the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, told CNS that Catholics need to understand that children’s lives are at stake.
“It is so important for people in our parishes to learn about the Hyde Amendment and the life-saving, conscience-protecting impact it has had for the past 45 years,” Hendricks said. “Without this protection, our federal tax dollars will contribute to millions more abortions around our nation and beyond.”
Without it, researchers estimate about 60,000 more unborn babies could be killed in abortions every year in the U.S.
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“The Hyde Amendment and similar laws have protected taxpayers from funding elective abortion for 45 years,” the bishops’ conference wrote on the petition website. “Now, powerful members of Congress want to take away these laws that both Democrats and Republicans have supported for nearly half a century.”
The bishops pointed to research showing that the Hyde Amendment has saved nearly 2.5 million babies from abortion. They also noted that polls consistently show an “overwhelming majority of Americans” support it.
“Do not force Americans to subsidize the taking of innocent life,” the bishops told lawmakers in the petition. They urged Congress to “oppose any bill, including any appropriations bill, that expands taxpayer funding of abortion.”
Polls consistently show that most Americans, including low-income Americans whom abortion activists claim to want to help, oppose taxpayer-funded abortions.
Significantly, a 2016 Harvard/Politico poll 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 do not want it.
Most Democrat lawmakers used to support the Hyde Amendment, too; but many – including President Joe Biden — recently abandoned Americans on the issue in favor of the billion-dollar industry, which donates huge amounts of money to their campaigns.
Now, pro-abortion groups are putting intense pressure on Democrats to include taxpayer funding for abortions in the budget.
Democrats control Congress, but Republicans have promised to fight against any efforts to force taxpayers to fund abortions. At least one Democrat, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, also said he supports the Hyde Amendment.
Prior to the amendment, in the 1970s, Americans paid for about 300,000 unborn babies’ abortion deaths each year, according to a report from the Family Research Council.
