Last Friday, the Biden-Harris administration released its $6 trillion budget proposal, which if enacted, would end the longstanding bipartisan Hyde amendment, thereby forcing Americans to pay for abortions.
Originally adopted in 1976, the Hyde amendment is language that gets added to spending bills (a “rider”) in order to stop the use of taxpayer funds for abortion. It protects the conscience rights of American taxpayers who do not want their money to support the killing of unborn children.
For decades, the Hyde amendment has enjoyed the support of both Democrats and Republicans. Across the years, Joe Biden himself supported the amendment.
In 1994, a Delaware constituent wrote to then-Senator Joe Biden, “Please don’t force me to pay for abortions against my conscience.”
“I agree with you…” Biden replied. “I will continue to abide by the same principle that has guided me throughout my 21 years in the Senate: Those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them. As you may know, I have consistently—on no fewer than 50 occasions—voted against federal funding of abortions.”
But ahead of his bid for the presidency in 2020, Biden began a series of flip-flops on the issue. Abortion activists and his eventual running mate, Kamala Harris, hammered him on his position. Then, in the summer of 2019, Biden officially reversed his stance on Hyde, betraying the conscience rights of American taxpayers.
The Biden-Harris budget is a fulfillment of that reversal. It abandons four decades of an incredibly popular bipartisan policy that has saved millions of lives.
The popularity of the policy cannot be overstated. According to a 2019 analysis from the pro-abortion Slate.com, “In every poll, a plurality of Americans opposes public funding of abortions. In every poll but one, that plurality is a majority. The questions vary, but the result is the same.”
Indeed, a Marist poll that was published earlier this year showed 58 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, while 38 percent support it.
Not only is it popular, it’s also constitutional. In 1980, the constitutionality of Hyde was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae.
Over the years, support for the Hyde amendment has had an impressive, life-saving impact. According to a 2016 report by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, “The best research indicates that the Hyde amendment has saved over two million unborn children” since 1976.
A 2020 addendum to the report now puts the figure at nearly 2.5 million unborn children. O average, that’s more than 50,000 lives spared from abortion every single year.
All to be changed because of the pro-abortion radicalism of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and too many Democratic legislators.
Right now, at least, not all is lost.
“So long as Joe Manchin keeps his commitment to keep the filibuster, it’s unlikely the Hyde amendment will be killed off entirely in 2021,” writes John McCormack at National Review. “But Democrats could be just a Senate seat or two away from having the votes to get rid of the Hyde amendment if they keep the House.”
Even so, the Biden-Harris administration has successfully funneled taxpayer dollars to the abortion industry through other schemes in the early months of 2021. In January, Biden rescinded the Mexico City Policy, allowing groups that perform or promote abortion overseas to once again receive funding from U.S. taxpayers.
Democrats in the 117th Congress also blocked Hyde protections in the “American Rescue Plan,” forcing Americans to pay for abortions under the guise of COVID-19 relief. According to Susan B. Anthony List, “This was the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion since Obamacare.”
If Biden and Harris were to get their way with their $6 trillion budget, the expansion would be even greater. Only the threat of next year’s midterm elections and perhaps a couple of brave lawmakers stand between that morbid outcome and now.
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