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Biden Pushes for Taxpayer-Funded Abortion in Budget

Biden supported ban on taxpayer funding for abortions while in the Senate

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May 28, 2021

President Joe Biden's proposed federal budget throws open the door for taxpayer-funded abortion by forgoing a longstanding measure he supported as a senator.

The Biden administration's 2022 fiscal budget massively boosts federal spending and lacks any protections from the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer money from funding abortions. The administration issued the budget request to Congress Friday.

The budget calls for $6 trillion in funding overall, the majority of which will go to pay for entitlement programs and interest on the national debt. The Department of Health and Human Services is requesting $133 billion in discretionary funding, none of which includes the Hyde Amendment. The request represents a nearly 25 percent increase from last year.

The Biden administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Pro-life groups condemned Biden's spending priorities. The budget proposal not only reversed the pro-life policies of the Trump administration but also ran against Biden's defense of the Hyde Amendment during his career in elected office.

"For more than four decades, the Hyde family of pro-life policies has kept American taxpayers out of the abortion business, with the Hyde Amendment itself saving nearly 2.5 million lives," said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser. "The Biden budget throws that longstanding, bipartisan consensus out the window to fulfill a campaign promise to the radical abortion lobby."

Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action, said Biden is forcing the American people to violate their consciences.

"The Biden/Harris budget is radically out of touch with the American people on the issue of taxpayer support for abortion," McClusky said. "The majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars funding abortion, yet the Biden/Harris administration removed the long-standing—since 1976—Hyde protections against such a policy."

Biden reversed his position on the Hyde Amendment during the 2020 presidential campaign after he repeatedly voted to reauthorize the amendment during his time in the Senate. After wavering on the issue, Biden said he supported taxpayer-funded abortions because of state legislatures passing restrictions on the procedure.