House GOP Pressures Biden to Protect the Hyde Amendment

Over 170 Republican House members sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to protect the bipartisan Hyde Amendment after not including it in his 2022 budget request.

The letter the group sent to the president explained how disappointed they are with him for calling for the removal of the Hyde amendment along with several over “modest, longstanding pro-life protections that have long been the subjects of legislative consensus.” The Republicans said his budget request breaks with the “historic bipartisanship.”

The group noted that the majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars to be funding abortions that are “resulting in the death of children in the womb.” Biden’s 2022 budget request would “force taxpayers to finance abortion on demand.”

Additionally, it would prevent “federal funds appropriated through the Labor, Health, Human Services, and Related Agencies Appropriations bills from being used to fund abortion or fund health plans that cover abortions, with certain exceptions.”

I and over 170 of my colleagues sent this letter to @POTUS urging him to protect the bipartisan Hyde Amendment and side with the majority of Americans who oppose taxpayer-funded abortions. https://t.co/tjRqWMaJhA pic.twitter.com/GNPQcJeL67

— Rep. Glenn Grothman (@RepGrothman) July 6, 2021

Due to the president not including the Hype Amendment in his request, the group of Republicans claim he “would be double-down on forcing taxpayers to find plans that cover elective abortions.”

In doing so, he would be “permanently establishing minimum tax credits and supporting a so-called ‘public option’ for a government run health insurance that would cover elective abortions.”

The Republicans emphasize that “the Hyde Amendment saves lives.” They included “more than twenty peer reviewed studies” that showed “more than two million people are alive today just in the United States because of Hyde,” noting that “about 60,000 children spared death by abortion every year” due to Hyde.

They quoted Biden’s inauguration speech when he said, “The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer,” but stressed that “justice for all” is not able to be achieved when there is “death of a whole segment of society, unborn babies, is legally ignored.” They mentioned that unborn babies are discriminated against because of “where they live — in the mothers’ womb and how small and defenseless they are.”