Catholic reporter Owen Jensen pressed the Biden administration Wednesday to justify its plan to force taxpayers to pay for the killing of unborn babies in abortions by eliminating the widely-popular Hyde Amendment.
During a press briefing, the EWTN journalist asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about a U.S. Senate vote earlier Wednesday to restore the pro-life amendment to a trillion-dollar spending bill, Mediaite reports.
The Hyde Amendment has prohibited taxpayer funding for elective abortions in Medicaid and other federal programs for more than 40 years. It is credited with saving about 2.5 million babies’ lives, but President Joe Biden and Democrat leaders are trying to get rid of it.
“Jen, what is the White House reaction to the Hyde Amendment being included in the $3.5 trillion budget resolution?” Jensen asked.
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Psaki quickly dismissed the question, responding: “I don’t think I’m going to negotiate from here. The president’s position on Hyde is well known, and we’ve stated many times publicly. I think we’re going to move on.”
Jensen again asked for an answer, “Can we follow up on that, please?”
But Psaki refused. “I think we’re going to move on so we can get some more people,” she said, adding, “It doesn’t help to scream over people.”
However, according to a C-SPAN video of the press conference, Jensen was not screaming or being rude. It was Psaki who interrupted him and refused to answer a hugely important question to millions of Americans about the use of their tax dollars to kill babies in the womb.
Because the Hyde Amendment is popular among Americans, the Biden administration’s strategy appears to be to avoid the issue altogether or move as quickly off topic as they can when confronted about it — the idea being to keep most Americans from recognizing how radical he is on abortion.
Jensen is one of the few reporters who has confronted Biden about his radical pro-abortion stance, and Psaki repeatedly has deflected his questions and shut him down. Few other news outlets have covered the issue – and even fewer have done so fairly by highlighting how strongly opposed Americans are to taxpayer-funded abortions.
Until recently, the Hyde Amendment had strong bipartisan support in Congress, and it continues to have strong support among most Americans. But Democrat leaders, backed by the billion-dollar abortion industry, are trying to get rid of it.
Biden himself once was a strong supporter of the Hyde Amendment, but he changed positions on the presidential campaign trail to court the support of the billion-dollar abortion industry.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate narrowly passed an amendment to reinstate the Hyde Amendment in the multi-trillion dollar infrastructure bill. The vote was 50-49 with one Democrat, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joining Republicans in support of the amendment. The measure ensures that the budget will comply with the Hyde Amendment as well as the Weldon Amendment, which protects health care providers who refuse to participate in abortion from discrimination.
Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has saved an estimated 2.5 million babies’ lives, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Polls consistently show that most Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions.
