Federal Pro-Life Protection Hits Major Milestone As New Attacks Emerge

Fifty years ago, a Republican congressman from Illinois named Henry Hyde took action to successfully protect American dollars from being used to end the life of an unborn child. 

To honor the lawmaker’s legacy, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) on Friday introduced a resolution calling for the continued support of the Hyde Amendment, a measure prohibiting the use of federal dollars to fund abortions. Lankford credits the amendment with saving over 2.5 million babies, according to a copy of a resolution first obtained by The Daily Wire. 

Lankford’s resolution marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Hyde Amendment on September 30, 1976. Since that time, the Hyde Amendment has been repeatedly passed, ensuring that federal dollars are not paying for abortions. In recent years, some Democrats have pushed to end the amendment and force Americans to pay for abortions. 

“For 50 years, the Hyde Amendment has been an important protection for American taxpayers. Every child is valuable. No American should ever wonder if the check they’re sending to the IRS on April 15 will be used to pay for someone’s elective abortion,” Lankford told The Daily Wire. “Hyde was a bipartisan agreement five decades ago, and it has been included in appropriations bills every year since. We should keep that commitment in place.”

The resolution says its purpose is to recognize the Hyde Amendment’s “enduring legacy of saving the lives of more than 2,600,000 unborn children and respecting the conscience rights of the American people.” It adds that it wants to “encourage the people of the United States to reflect upon the history and significance of the Hyde Amendment and the loss of 63,000,000 babies through abortions that have taken place since Roe v. Wade.”

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced a companion resolution in the House. 

“I had the honor of serving alongside Rep. Hyde in the House for more than two decades, and I can personally attest to his unrivaled brilliance, unparalleled compassion, and unwavering commitment to protecting and defending the rights of the unborn—the weakest and most vulnerable among us,” he said. 

Credit: Photo by Diana Walker/Getty Images.

The Hyde Amendment, supported by members of both parties at the time, came three years after the Supreme Court ruled that there was a constitutional right to an abortion — a decision that would later be struck down by the high court in 2022. 

‘‘We who seek to protect that most defenseless and innocent of human lives, the unborn — seek to inhibit the use of federal funds to pay for and thus encourage abortion as an answer to the human and compelling problem of an unwanted child,” Hyde said at the time. 

In recent years, the Hyde Amendment has faced challenges from Democrats who have floated appealing the amendment. In 2019, then Senator Kamala Harris called for Hyde to be repealed claiming it was blocking access to “reproductive health care.”  Those efforts have so far fallen flat when Democrats controlled Congress and would likely require a 60-seat majority in the Senate.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump suggested that Republicans should be “a little flexible on Hyde.” 

“You have to be a little flexible on Hyde, you know that. You’ve got to be a little flexible,” Trump said. “You’ve got to use ingenuity. You’ve got to work. We’re all big fans of everything.”

Despite that comment, Trump has moved to keep dollars from going toward abortions. The president signed an executive order in January 2025 to enforce the Hyde Amendment and crack down on taxpayer funding for abortion. 

There still appears to be some federal dollars paying for abortions. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office found that almost a quarter of Affordable Care Act plans cover abortions. Some lawmakers argues this violates the provisions of the Hyde Amendment. 

Other Republican senators who signed onto Lankford’s resolution included Cynthia Lummis (WY), Jim Justice (WV), Pete Ricketts (NB), Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), Steve Daines (MT), Jim Risch (ID), Josh Hawley (MO), Rick Scott (FL), Ted Budd NC), Roger Wicker (MS), Mike Rounds (SD), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Ted Cruz (TX), Jim Banks (IN), Deb Fischer (NB), Mike Crapo (ID), Mike Lee (UT), John Hoeven (ND), Darline Graham Nordone (SC), Katie Britt (AL), Bill Hagerty (TN), and Dave McCormick (PA).