The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged Congress this week to protect American taxpayers from being forced to fund the killing of unborn babies in abortions across the world.
On Thursday, the bishops asked Americans to join their new letter-writing campaign to stop taxpayer-funded abortions and help mothers and babies, Breitbart reports.
“Congress is moving forward on paying for abortion with your tax dollars! Babies and their moms urgently need your help,” the bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities wrote in an email Thursday. “Tell Congress not to take innocent lives!”
Pro-abortion lawmakers are pushing to get rid of several amendments that prohibit taxpayer funding for elective abortions in federal and international spending bills.
The Hyde Amendment, perhaps the most well-known, prohibits taxpayer funding for elective abortions in Medicaid and other health care programs. It is credited with saving about 2.4 million unborn babies from abortion.
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Earlier this summer, President Joe Biden eliminated the Hyde Amendment from his proposed 2021 budget. If Congress passes his plan, Americans could be forced to pay for abortions in Medicaid for the first time in more than four decades.
There are other amendments that protect taxpayers from being forced to pay for the killing of unborn babies in abortions, too. These pro-abortion Democrats also are trying to get rid of.
One appropriations bill advancing in Congress, the Financial Services and General Government bill, no longer includes the Dornan and Smith Amendments, the bishops warned. For many years, these amendments have protected taxpayers from being forced to fund abortions in Washington, D.C. and in the federal government employees’ health insurance plans.
The bishops said a new State, Foreign Operations appropriation bill also excludes the Helms Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions across the world.
All three amendments are decades-old provisions that used to have strong bipartisan support in Congress – and still have strong public support, the bishops responded.
“The prohibition on taxpayer funding of elective abortion is a consensus policy that is supported by a majority of Americans – including low-income women, and women of color,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, chairman of the bishops’ Committee of Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop David J. Malloy, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, in a statement.
They said Americans’ tax dollars should be spent to help people, not kill unborn babies.
“[We] call on the Appropriations Committee and all members of Congress to protect taxpayers from having to pay for the evil of abortion, and to instead use our tax dollars for the common good and welfare of all,” Naumann and Malloy said.
Polls consistently show strong public opposition to taxpayer funding for abortions. In January, a Marist poll found 58 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in the U.S. and 77 percent oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in other countries.
A 2016 Harvard/Politico poll found similarly strong opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions. Significantly, the 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 taxpayer-funded abortion are the ones most strongly opposed to it.
Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment alone has saved an estimated 2.4 million babies’ lives, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
