by Mary Margaret Olohan
Over 170 Republican members of Congress called on President Joe Biden Thursday to include pro-life protections in his budget request, warning that the current budget is “an affront to the majority of Americans who do not want their tax dollars funding abortion on demand resulting in the death of children in the womb.”
The Daily Caller News Foundation first obtained the letter warning the president that his fiscal year 2022 budget request will remove bipartisan pro-life protections such as the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortions and has been included in appropriations legislation every year since 1976.
Republicans emphasized that Americans who oppose abortion should not be forced to see their taxpayer dollars fund a “brutal procedure that ends the lives of unborn children.”
“We know you understand this. You get it—or at least you once did,” the lawmakers told Biden, reminding the president that he formerly opposed abortion.
“Years ago, you wrote a constituent explaining that a law against funding for abortion would ‘protect both the woman and her unborn child,’” the lawmakers wrote. “You wrote: ‘I have consistently—on no fewer than 50 occasions—voted against federal funding of abortions…those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.’”
The letter is led by Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, as well as House Congressional Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chairs Chris Smith of New Jersey, Andy Harris of Maryland, Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota, and Kat Cammack of Florida.
Biden’s proposed budget would not only also increase funding for abortion providers both internationally and in the U.S., the lawmakers said, it also provides additional funds to the United Nations Population Fund, though the UNFPA complies with China’s forced family planning policies.
The Republicans noted that the budget would also repeal the Dornan Amendment preventing Washington, D.C., tax dollars from being used for abortions.
The Hyde Amendment first passed in 1976 and bans the use of federal funds for abortions. Biden has repeatedly promised to repeal the Hyde Amendment, and his assurances are backed by Democratic leadership and pro-abortion advocates pushing to axe the amendment from acts of Congress.
Biden, who formerly said he was opposed to abortion as a Catholic, supported the Hyde Amendment up until June 2019. At the time, presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, along with former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and then-Sen. Kamala Harris, had pledged to repeal the Hyde Amendment should they become president in 2020.
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Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
