During last year’s presidential campaign, pro-life conservatives warned that the election of Joe Biden would lead to radical policies targeting children in the womb.
As Washington Examiner columnist Quin Hillyer explained in a piece over the weekend, recent events show those concerns were more than warranted.
The Hyde Amendment is a budgetary provision first enacted in 1976 that prevents federal funds from being used to pay for abortion except in cases of rape or when a mother’s life or health is threatened.
On Friday, Biden submitted a budget proposal for 2022 that notably excluded Hyde Amendment language, thus opening the door to federal abortion funding.
Hyde reversal
Although long a supporter of the largely bipartisan Hyde Amendment, Biden flipped on his position two years ago. “I make no apologies for my last position and I make no apologies for what I’m about to say,” Biden announced at a campaign event in June 2019, Fox News reported.
“I can’t justify leaving millions of women without access to the care they need and the ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right,” he said.
As Hillyer explained, the president’s flip-flop on the amendment ends “decades of bipartisan agreement that, no matter what one’s position on the legality of abortion, at least it is enough of a morally fraught issue that the money of anti-abortion taxpayers should not be confiscated to pay for the taking of baby’s lives.”
“The consensus was that even if private funds or private insurance cover the elective surgery, public funds should not be,” Hillyer continued.
“When a third of the population thinks that a procedure is murder and another third finds it morally problematic enough to favor considerable restrictions on it, it is unethical to use the plenary force of government to make those two-thirds materially support it,” he explained.
Funding for foreign abortions
However, Biden isn’t just violating that consensus when it comes to publicly funding abortions in America.
Among his first acts upon taking office was to rescind the Mexico City Policy, a rule that banned foreign aid dollars from going to groups that perform or advocate for abortion, Fox News reported.
“President Biden’s decision to reverse critical pro-life policies at home and abroad shows a complete lack of respect for the sanctity of human life,” said Montana Sen. Steve Daines (R).
The post Hyde Amendment missing from latest Biden budget proposal first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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