House Republicans Will Push Bill to Permanently Ban Tax-Funded Abortions

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 9, 2023   |   12:07PM   |   Washington, DC

Now that Republicans have taken over Congress from Nancy Pelosi and pro-abortion Democrats, one of the first orders of business will be promoting a pro-life agenda. And one of the first bills Republicans will promote is a measure to permanently ban taxpayer-funded abortions.

As a condition of securing the votes necessary to become Speaker of the House, pro-life Congressman Kevin McCarthy agreed to a rules package that includes provisions ensuring that pro-life legislation will be brought up and approved quickly.

As The Independent reports:

The proposed rules package for the House of Representatives that Kevin McCarthy agreed to in exchange for conservatives supporting him for speaker would ban taxpayer dollars from going toward abortions.

In addition, the rules package would allow for consideration of legislation that would “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.”

The House will vote on the proposed rules package on Monday evening.

The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion or for health insurance coverage for abortion. This makes the Hyde Amendment and other commonsense laws against abortion funding permanent. The Republican bill also closes the abortion funding loophole created under Obamacare.

Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram for pro-life pictures and videos.

The pro-life group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life told LifeNews is supports the bill.

“The Democratic Party led by President Biden not only aims to repeal the longstanding Hyde Amendment and related federal policies, but also is actively working to undermine and ignore them. With bipartisan support for over 40 years, the Hyde Amendment has saved almost 2.5 million lives A 2022 longitudinal cohort study by Studnicki et al. examined Medicaid records in the 17 states that use their own taxpayer funds to subsidize abortion and found that abortion of a first pregnancy in this program is associated with increased abortion rates in subsequent pregnancies – abortion, in short, begets more abortion, compounding impacts of the procedure,” it said.

“The new GOP House majority is kicking off the Congress with bills to rein in the radical abortion lobby. After four years of pro-abortion Democrat control under Biden and Pelosi, the change could not be more welcome,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Democrats in Congress have consistently pushed a harmful agenda of abortion on demand until birth, paid for by taxpayers, and even infanticide. By vilifying pregnancy centers and others that offer support and services for women, they have fueled an epidemic of pro-abortion violence.

“We look forward to working with Rep. Scalise, GOP leadership and all our pro-life House allies throughout the Congress to advance an ambitious, life-saving agenda,” she told LifeNews.

National Right to Life also supports the legislation.

“National Right to Life praises Republican leaders for making the protection of innocent human life a priority in the U.S. House of Representatives,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Pro-life leaders in the House have already shown that they will stand up to Biden and the Democrats in Congress who have made unlimited abortion a priority.”

Tobias continued, “We have seen the effects of the ‘all-abortion-all-the-time’ policies under the leadership of the Democrats. They created a maelstrom of pro-abortion policies and legislation that would make unlimited abortion the law of the land and they worked lockstep with the White House to promote abortion through government programs and activities.”

It’s estimated that before the Hyde Amendment took effect, the Medicaid program paid for about 300,000 elective abortions annually, and that the number was escalating rapidly. The Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved over 2.5 million lives.