President Joe Biden released the $6 trillion budget proposal for 2022 on Friday, detailing his priorities for the coming fiscal year that begins on October 1. Upon releasing the details to Congress, however, lawmakers noticed that the budget did not include the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the government from using taypayer money to fund abortions. The president's move delivered on his previous campaign promise to attempt to remove the ban on federal funding for abortions, angering pro-lifers and religious advocates.
Pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser was one of the first to speak out on the pro-abortion administration, decrying President Biden for refusing to uphold "that longstanding, bipartisan campaign promise out the window to fulfill a campaign promise to the radical abortion lobby," the Christian Post reported.
Dannenfelser called upon the Congress, which is responsible for passing the spending plan, to "be fearless in fighting to preserve the common-ground Hyde principle and to reject any budget that omits vital pro-life protections."
Dannenfelser argued that for over 40 years, the Hyde Amendment has prevented American taxpayermoney from funnelling into the "abortion business," saying it had saved "nearly 2.5 million lives." She also accused President Biden for flipping the switch from being a "supporter of policies that protect the lives of the unborn and their mothers" to now someone who "caters to the most extreme voices within his party."
"If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's ZIP code," then presidential candidate Biden said in 2019, as per The Hill. "I can't justify leaving millions of women without the access to care they need, and the ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right."
President Biden's pro-abortion administration is facing much pressure to support abortion rights just as the Supreme Court is set to hear a dispute on a Mississippi law that aims to prohibit abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The case is seen as a threat to Roe v. Wade, which conservatives and pro-lifers are eager to overthrow. But abortion rights advocates are victorious over the $6 trillion spending plan that leaves out the Hyde Amendment from the budget.
American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative counsel Georgeanne Usova calls it a "historic step" to abolishing the bans in the spending plan that "pushed abortion care out of reach and perpetuated inequality for decades." She argued, "No one should be denied abortion care because of where they live, how much money they have, or how they get insurance."
But pro-lifers do not agree with the current pro-abortion administration. Pro-life groups Susan B. Anthony List and National Right to Life wrote a letter addressed to Congress, highlighting how 58% of voters across the U.S., "including 31% of Democrats, 34% of self-described pro-choice voters, and 65% of Independents" are against funding abortion through taxpayer money. They called on the Congress and reminded them of their "duty and privilege" to "[protect] the vulnerable" by fighting for the Hyde Amendment.
"[It is] an important time for Congress to recognize the dignity of every life by reaffirming support and retaining the Hyde family," the pro-lifers' letter argued.
