Late Wednesday night, Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives passed a $1.5 trillion spending package that included — among other obscene provisions — some highly lucrative kickbacks to Democrats’ friends in the abortion industry.
Pro-life groups were quick to claim victory for securing long-standing pro-life provisions in the legislation, such as the Hyde, Helms, and Kemp-Kasten Amendments. They should; these riders are literal lifesavers. Estimates indicate that the Hyde Amendment has saved 2.5 million lives, and — before Democrats’ recent embrace of abortion extremism — enjoyed bipartisan support including from now-President Joe Biden, until his most recent presidential campaign.
However, the Hyde Amendment should really be nothing for Republicans to celebrate, since not directly funding the killing of unborn Americans ought to be the bare minimum baseline for Republican support, regardless of whether we’re in the minority. It used to be.
Furthermore, as this omnibus bill demonstrates, Hyde is not the end all be all in terms of protecting American taxpayer dollars from flowing to the abortion industry. Democrats nevertheless found ways to funnel cash to the abortion lobby, to the tune of millions of dollars, while dodging the protection of pro-life riders.
Tucked away in the more than 2,700-page long bill were numerous provisions that either directly or indirectly support pro-abortion organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) or a newly created $200 million fund for a “Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund” that we know will go toward promoting abortion across the globe. The UNFPA openly calls for “the realization of reproductive rights for all” on its website — a clear embrace of abortion extremism — and has previously been defunded by Republican presidents for its ties to the abortion industry and partnerships with China. The Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund is a new program buried deep inside the omnibus that pro-life organizations, such as Family Research Council, worry will export the woke gender ideology that has already infiltrated America across the globe. Furthermore, it would pave the way for the worldwide abortion cartel to wrongly promote abortion as necessary for women’s empowerment.
Back here in the U.S., Title X taxpayer funds included in the omnibus will continue to keep the lights on at Planned Parenthoods across the country. It is important to note that, under the Hyde Amendment, taxpayer dollars cannot directly fund abortions; however, that does not keep taxpayer dollars from subsidizing the abortion industry’s other expenses and allowing them to shuffle funds around to maintain abortion operations.
Additionally, the legislation includes funding for public universities in California that, starting next January, will be required by state law to provide chemical abortions to their students — at taxpayers’ expense. We all ought to be able to agree that a college dorm room is no place to have an abortion; unfortunately, the abortion lobby in California managed to get this bill through. While federal dollars may not be paying for these abortion pills directly, Americans will be nonetheless footing the bill for the salaries of the doctors and nurses and to obtain supplies for the student clinics facilitating the abortions.
This should not be the case.
I introduced legislation with my good friends Rep. Mary Miller and Sen. Steve Daines last summer that would block federal funding from flowing to these pro-abortion universities. It is unconscionable that American taxpayers would pay the tab for what amounts to a political payback to the abortion lobby that directly targets vulnerable college students.
Why did these abortion kickbacks pass? As it almost always happens, congressional “leadership” slid these pro-abortion provisions into a “must-pass bill.” As a result, a handful of my Republican colleagues voted in support of these measures that they would have otherwise opposed if voted straight up or down, because too many are too afraid to vote against anything considered “must-pass.”
That’s how the swamp operates. Terrible provisions are tied into legislation, we are told that the bill has to pass, only to — in this case — fund the taking of innocent life both here in America and across the globe.
When Republicans take back the majority, we must be amply clear — not one single dollar for the taking of innocent life.
The American people need to say “enough” and stop funding violent tyranny over the lives of the unborn.