Democrat Bill Would Force Americans to Fund Killing Babies in Abortions in the Nation’s Capital

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jun 24, 2021   |   10:17AM   |   Washington, DC

House Democrats introduced a new spending bill Wednesday that would force taxpayers to pay for the killing of unborn babies in abortions in Washington, D.C.

For years, federal appropriations bills for the U.S. capital have included limits on taxpayer funding for elective abortions in Medicaid and other district programs.

This year, however, Democrats, most of whom are backed by the billion-dollar abortion industry, won control the federal government, and they are using their power to push a radical pro-abortion agenda.

“With Democrats controlling the White House, House and Senate, we have the best opportunity in over a decade to enact a spending bill with no anti-home-rule riders, as this D.C. appropriations bill does and as I requested,” said U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a D.C. Democrat, in a statement.

Norton described the abortion funding in the bill as a “major victory” for her district.

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She said she was “very pleased” that “the bill respects D.C.’s right to self-government by allowing D.C. to spend its local funds as it sees fit, including on abortions for low-income women.”

However, most Americans, including low-income women, have the opposite view about taxpayer-funded abortions.

Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars to pay for the killing of unborn babies in elective abortions. Significantly, a 2016 Harvard/Politico poll found that low-income voters were even more strongly opposed to taxpayer-funded abortions than than higher income voters.

The bill represents the interests of the abortion industry and its advocates, not Americans.

On Wednesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America celebrated the legislation as “historic” action that will expand abortions in D.C.

“This historic bill is free of abortion coverage restrictions including the long-standing ban on coverage of abortion care for District of Columbia residents and a ban on coverage of abortion care for federal government employees,” the group responded in a statement.

NARAL chief campaigns and advocacy officer Christian LoBue urged Congress to pass the bill, claiming it will help low-income women, “women of color, young people and transgender and non-binary people.”

Democrats narrowly control both houses of Congress, and Republicans have promised to fight against their plans to expand abortions.

In January, House and Senate Republicans wrote letters to Democrat leaders making it clear that they will fight to preserve the Hyde Amendment and other limits on taxpayer-funded abortions in federal spending bills.

“Abortion … is a brutal procedure that destroys the life of an innocent unborn child,” the Republican senators said in their letter. “The Hyde Amendment reflects a consensus that millions of pro-life Americans who are profoundly opposed to abortion should not be coerced into paying for it or incentivizing it with their taxpayer dollars.”

The Hyde Amendment, a rider on federal spending bills since 1976, prohibits taxpayer funding for most 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.

President Joe Biden’s 2022 budget plan eliminates the Hyde Amendment for the first time in decades.