After 50 years of protecting life by preventing mass taxpayer funding of abortions, the Hyde Amendment is increasingly under threat. With Hyde’s protections annually threatened by left-wing activists in Congress, it’s time to make this long-standing policy permanent.
Enacted on Sept. 30, 1976, as the first major pro-life legislative victory on the national level following Roe v. Wade, the Hyde Amendment is credited by the Charlotte Lozier Institute with saving nearly 2.7 million lives. They’re beloved sons and daughters, siblings, spouses, classmates, friends, and much more.
That deserves a huge milestone celebration. But there’s more to be done to extend the protections of the Hyde Amendment to all of America’s children and all taxpayer dollars, and a danger that we could lose them entirely if Democrats regain power.
The Hyde Amendment places clear restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortion, a principle the people strongly support. That’s the short story. Currently, this principle covers only spending on specific programs, the largest being Medicaid. Congress has adopted a constellation of amendments over the years in an effort to apply this principle consistently, despite the challenge.
The Hyde Amendment is also not permanent. It’s a testament to its value that it continues to be reaffirmed year after year with bipartisan support, even as it becomes more and more a target of Democrats’ attacks. First, with Hillary Clinton leading the charge, the party changed its platform to call for its elimination. Then, Joe Biden switched sides while running for president. In 2022, Republicans fought back as the Democratic majority on the powerful House Appropriations Committee pushed to strike it out of spending bills.
Now, their massive wish list includes eliminating Hyde and passing a national all-trimester abortion bill in the first 100 hours of a Democrat-controlled Congress.
It’s no idle threat. Last October, Democrats staged the longest government shutdown in history, in part over making taxpayers pay for more abortions. Obamacare is a major program that was craftily designed to fall outside Hyde protections, including providing COVID-era subsidies at the heart of the government funding negotiations.
Some members of Congress persistently deny Obamacare’s funding for abortions, even though it’s detailed in stark black and white by the Government Accountability Office. This nonpartisan watchdog agency just released a nearly 30-page report that found 1 in 4 taxpayer-funded health exchange plans — thousands of plans affecting approximately 4.4 million people — pay for painful, elective abortions of healthy babies in states with no limits up to birth. Democrats want to expand these subsidies.
That should shock us to our core. Twenty states protect children in the womb, like Louisiana, where babies are protected from conception throughout pregnancy. We express our pro-life values in many ways, including through our Pregnancy and Baby Care Initiative, supporting pregnancy centers and other organizations that lead from within the local communities they serve. Our tax dollars should never pay for abortions anywhere. If anything, they should go to help mothers and families in need of a hand up.
Republicans did temporarily defund Planned Parenthood in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This was a good start, but more must be done to permanently stop the underwriting of abortion industry giants.
Meanwhile, look at the brazenness of Democratic candidates running across the country. Some Democrats now run as open socialists, while others seek to distance themselves from the Democratic Socialists of America. Yet there is no daylight between them in their disregard for human life and opposition to the Hyde Amendment.
Consider Jamie Davis in Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race, for example. Davis claims the government shouldn’t be involved in protecting life. He also heartlessly compared the decision to terminate the life of an unborn child to buying a truck, saying the decision is “no different than my truck outside — I bought it and paid for it.”
These callous comments come from a candidate running in a state where a majority of voters are pro-life. Louisianans deserve better.
Life is precious and worth fighting for, and we are proud to always support and defend the Hyde Amendment. Congress should pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act to apply Hyde permanently and across the entire federal government.
Let’s not only celebrate 2,678,274 lives saved over the past 50 years. Let’s not rest until this bedrock protection is secured for all future generations of American children to come.
Congresswoman Julia Letlow represents Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America