Sen. Blackburn Leads Push for Pro-Life Protections in 2025 Budget

Marsha Blackburn

Protections for the unborn belong at the forefront of the federal budget, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., wrote in a letter sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday.

“As the Senate Appropriations Committee continues to work on legislation for fiscal year 2025, we urge the committee to ensure that long-standing, bipartisan pro-life provisions are included as bill text,” says Blackburn’s letter, co-signed by Republicans Sens. Steve Daines of Montana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and shared with The Daily Signal.

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Sens. Ron Johnson, Roger Wicker Introduce Senate ‘No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act’

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R) and Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker (R) led 45 of their Republican colleagues in introducing the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, a measure that would permanently prohibit federal funding for abortion.

Johnson and Wicker introduced the legislation Wednesday, a measure that would establish a “permanent prohibition on federal funding for abortion, replacing the current restrictions with a single, government-wide standard,” said a press release from Johnson’s office.

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Republican Senators Re-Introduce No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act

In a show of pro-life solidarity, 47 Republican U.S. senators are re-introducing a bill that would establish a permanent prohibition on federal funding for abortion, replacing the current restrictions with a single, government-wide standard.

The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the lawmakers say, attempts to clean up inconsistent and haphazard policies that have regulated federal funding for abortion.

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Youngkin Budget Amendments Include Gas Tax Holiday, Ban on Taxpayer-Funded Abortions, and Law Against Picketing Justices

Governor Glenn Youngkin is sending 35 budget amendments to the General Assembly to approve on Friday, including a gas tax holiday, a ban on using state Medicaid funds for some abortions, and a law that would make it a class six felony to picket or demonstrate outside a courthouse or residences of justices and judges. The Democratic Senate is expected to block of Youngkin’s controversial changes, but eyes are on Senator Joe Morrissey (D-Richmond) to see if he’ll vote with Republicans to approve the abortion funding ban.

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Commentary: Hyde Amendment Is New Obstacle to Biden Spending Plan

The White House is once again at odds with the senior senator from West Virginia.

Joe Manchin has made clear for months that the administration’s sprawling $3.5 trillion social spending package is too large, and just as progressives seemed to agree that the top-line number could be whittled down somewhat, the moderate Democrat drew another line in the sand, this one underscoring the Hyde Amendment.

The amendment represents a decades-long agreement by both parties that prohibits federal dollars from funding abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. Manchin wants it included in the spending bill. The White House does not. Thus has emerged another obstacle to passing the president’s legislative agenda.

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Ohio Democratic Senate Candidate Tim Ryan Votes to Use Taxpayer Funds for Abortions

Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan

Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Representative Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) joined all other House Democrats and voted to kill to Hyde Amendment — a rule that bars federal funding of abortions within the United States.

In addition to striking down the Hyde Amendment, Ryan voted to also undo the Helms Amendment, which will allow the U.S. to sent taxpayer funds to contribute to elective abortions in foreign countries.

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Republicans Demand Biden Include Historic Bipartisan Pro-Life Protections in Budget Request

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.”

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Democrats Introduce Bill to Repeal ‘Racist’ Hyde Amendment

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Democratic senators plan to introduce legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, arguing that the decades-old legislation is both “anti-choice” and “blatantly racist.”

The Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act will be introduced in Congress Thursday, the HuffPost reported, by Democratic Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Democratic California Sen. Barbara Lee. The legislation demands the reversal of the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortions.

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Planned Parenthood Bid to Kill Hyde Amendment to Face Pro-Life Pushback

Planned Parenthood is preparing its wish list for former Vice President Joe Biden’s prospective administration, but pro-life forces are gearing up for a fight. 

In a Roll Call interview, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said her organization’s top goal in 2021 is abolishing the Hyde Amendment, which for 40 years has prohibited federal funding for most abortions.

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Six Things to Know About the Hyde Amendment

by Rachel del Guidice   Former Vice President Joe Biden came out Thursday against the Hyde Amendment, after previously supporting it. “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,” Biden said at a gala hosted by the Democratic National Committee in Atlanta. For decades, Congress has kept taxpayer funds from paying for abortions due to the leadership of an Illinois congressman. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., was behind the amendment, first passed in 1976, that prohibits use of federal funds for most elective abortions. Melanie Israel, a research associate in the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email that the Hyde Amendment is one of the most significant legacies of the pro-life movement. “One of the pro-life movement’s first victories following the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions in 1973, which effectively legalized abortion-on-demand across the country, came about thanks to Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois in 1976,” Israel said. “He championed an amendment to the annual [Health and Human Services] appropriations bill which prohibited the department from expending…

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In Reversal, Biden Opposes Ban on Federal Money for Abortion

  After two days of intense criticism, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden reversed course Thursday and declared that he no longer supports a long-standing congressional ban on using federal health care money to pay for abortions. “If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment” that makes it harder for some women to access care, Biden said at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Atlanta. The former vice president’s reversal on the Hyde Amendment came after rivals and women’s rights groups blasted him for affirming through campaign aides that he still supported the decades-old budget provision. The dynamics had been certain to flare again at Democrats’ first primary debate in three weeks. Centrist risks Biden didn’t mention this week’s attacks, saying his decision was about health care, not politics. Yet the circumstances highlight the risks for a 76-year-old former vice president who’s running as more of a centrist in a party where some skeptical activists openly question whether he can be the party standard-bearer in 2020. And Biden’s explanation tacitly repeated his critics’ arguments that the Hyde Amendment is another abortion barrier that disproportionately affects poor women and women of color. “I’ve…

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Booker Says The Hyde Amendment Is ‘an Assault on African-American Women’

by Mary Margaret Olohan   Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said Thursday that the Hyde Amendment is an “assault on African American women.” The Democratic 2020 presidential hopeful spoke at the Democratic National Committee African-American Leadership Summit in Atlanta, Georgia against the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or if the mother’s life is in danger. Left-wing activists claim the amendment disproportionately affects low-income women and women of color. “This assault on women’s reproductive rights is an assault on women, but it’s particularly an assault on African-American women,” Booker said, according to a tweet from CNN’s DJ Judd. “And the Hyde Amendment, to deny people through Medicaid and Medicare abortion rights, that is an assault on African American women too.” Speaking at the DNC African American Leadership Summit in Atlanta, Senator Cory Booker calls the Hyde Amendment “an assault on African American women.” Booker goes on to pledge to “create in the White House an office of reproductive rights.” pic.twitter.com/PtXy0sr0fX — DJ Judd (@DJJudd) June 6, 2019 Booker also tweeted his support of the amendment on Wednesday. “The Hyde Amendment is a threat to reproductive rights that punishes…

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Ohio’s Presidential Hopeful Tim Ryan Wants to Overturn the Hyde Amendment

  Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) believes the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funding from going to abortions, should be overturned. This amendment has exceptions for when the mother’s health is in jeopardy or in cases of rape and incest. “Of course we’ve got to fund Planned Parenthood, we’ve got to get rid of the Hyde Amendment, we’ve got to make sure we invest into women’s health care. ” Ryan told MSNBC’s “Live With Stephanie Ruhle” on Wednesday. Ryan told Rule how important elections are in getting anti-abortion laws struck down. “But the reality is we’ve got to win elections … we now have the federal courts peppered with conservative pro-life justices. The Supreme Court is a conservative pro-life court. We’ve got to start moving in the right direction here politically and getting elected so that we appoint the judges and we win elections in these states.” These pro-abortion comments came a day after the presidential candidate spoke at a pro-abortion rally on the steps of the Supreme Court. Ryan asked protesters outside the Supreme Court when legislators were going to “give a sh– about the baby once it’s born.” Also at the rally, the Ohio representative shared how he flipped…

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Carolina Abortion Fund Says Killing Unborn Babies Is ‘A Social Good’

The Carolina Abortion Fund (CAF) said in a tweet Wednesday that killing unborn babies helps society. “Abortion is a social good,” reads the tweet, with the hashtag “BeBoldEndHyde.” https://twitter.com/NCAbortionFund/status/907950191789133824 The Hyde Amendment “prohibits the expenditure for any abortion of funds authorized or appropriated by federal law or funds in any trust fund to which funds are…

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