President Biden’s new budget proposal once again takes aim at the child in the womb, this time by omitting the language of the Hyde Amendment. A bipartisan legislative provision that has been included in every appropriations bill since 1976, the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding for abortion, except to save the life of the mother or if the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape.
In addition to Hyde, the Biden administration has also removed the Weldon Amendment from the budget proposal. Since 2005, the Weldon Amendment has protected physicians, healthcare providers, and hospitals from undue discrimination by federal agencies and state and local governments, guaranteeing that all healthcare professionals or entities do not have to “provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.” Without the Weldon Amendment, state governments would have the green light to prejudice and coerce healthcare professionals for their moral or religious objections to abortion. In 2020, the Trump Administration withheld roughly $200 million in California Medicaid Funds due to the state’s unlawful attempt to ignore the provisions of the Weldon Amendment.
Over the past 45 years, the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2.5 million lives. For all of those years, Planned Parenthood, which profits from performing abortions and the sale of abortifacients, has been pushing for its removal from the annual appropriations bill. Instead of offering solutions to such current problems as inflation, border control, energy, and Russian and Chinese aggression, Democrats want to force Americans to subsidize abortion, disregarding the deeply held moral concerns of many citizens.
While millions of Americans were forced to forego and delay important operations and procedures during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, abortion clinics in many states remained opened despite strict lockdown and social distancing regulations. While churches, schools, and nonprofits had their doors forcibly shut, unable to provide services to the most vulnerable, Planned Parenthood was allowed to continue to perform abortion procedures.
As polls have repeatedly shown, a strong majority of Americans back the Hyde Amendment. A recent Marist College poll reported that as of January, 2022, 54% of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. The same poll also reported that 71% of Americans support some kind of legal limits on abortion. This poll confirms the results of other relatively recent polls. A Politico and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll reported in 2016 that 58% of Americans opposed allowing Medicaid funding to be used for abortion services. Yet, Congressional Democrats continue to ignore the statistics and willfully peddle pro-abortion talking points.
In July of 2020, Congressman Jim McGovern, whose district accounts for most of Worcester County, tried to stoke fear by claiming that the Hyde Amendment discriminates against women of color and those with low-incomes. Congressman McGovern, who professes himself to be a Catholic and who attributes many of his policies to the Church’s charity and efforts to serve the poor, has a 100% rating from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Surely the Congressman must see that by his support for abortion, a sin which cries out to Heaven for retributive justice, he has turned his back on the Church.
On March 30, 2022, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, known for her association with “The Squad,” a group of ultra-progressive and socialist Democrats in the House of Representatives, claimed that the Hyde Amendment was “racist and discriminatory.” If the amendment reduces the number of African-American babies that are aborted, how can this outcome be deemed racist? Standing against abortion for the defense of the defenseless unborn baby in the womb is an act of charity.
Women should not be pressured, with government support, into having abortions because they face difficult situations. Planned Parenthood, and other abortion providers, want the Hyde and Weldon Amendments removed in order to ramp up abortion marketing significantly. Underprivileged women need resources, support, and aid, including the ready availability of adoption services where appropriate, not more resources aimed at terminating their pregnancy.
Abortion, as Mother Teresa said, is “the greatest destroyer of peace because it destroys two lives.” Instead of expanding government’s financing of abortion at time when the average American is struggling, Congress should reallocate the limited government funding currently going to abortion providers and advocates to pregnancy centers that actually aid women through their crisis pregnancies, and beyond.
President Biden’s budget is yet another perfidious attack on the unborn, a trend which has been consistent throughout his entire political career. Every American who is moved by attacks on the defenseless should mobilize now, and strive to save Hyde. Now that leaked documents from the Supreme Court indicate the imminent overturn of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the fight against abortion, one of the great evils of our time, has only just begun.