President Biden released a proposed budget Monday that, for the second straight year, omits bipartisan language prohibiting taxpayer funding of abortion.
The proposed $5.8 trillion 2023 budget fails to include the Hyde Amendment, a legislative provision dating to the 1970s that prohibits government money from being used for abortions. It originally passed a Democratic-controlled House and Senate just a few years after Roe v. Wade. Every president since then, including Democratic Presidents Obama and Clinton, signed budgets into law with Hyde language.
Although his 2022 budget also failed to include the Hyde Amendment, it was re-inserted by Congress during negotiations.
“Joe Biden likes to say budgets are ‘statements of values,’ and his budget shows once again that Biden does not care about the life of the unborn child,” said Andrew Brennan, director of faith communications for the Republican National Committee. “Biden’s decision to eliminate the bipartisan Hyde Amendment in his budget proposal for the second straight year is just one of the many reasons this is the most radical, pro-abortion administration in history.”
The Hyde Amendment must be reauthorized annually. Pro-life groups say it has saved more than 2 million lives.
Planned Parenthood applauded Biden for the move, asserting that the Hyde Amendment “disproportionately” denies “abortion access to people of color, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants” and low- and middle-income communities – “communities that already face insidious barriers to health care and economic advancement.”
Planned Parenthood cheered the budget’s $400 million increase in funding for Title X, a federal family-planning program for low-income patients. Planned Parenthood’s clinics receive money from Title X.
“The president’s budget is an essential opportunity to underscore the administration’s values, and we are pleased that the budget demonstrates a commitment to expanding reproductive freedom,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood. “Now it’s Congress’s job to build on that commitment.”
Related:
Senate Blocks Taxpayer Funding of Abortion by 1 Vote: Hyde ‘Has Been Saved’
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Pool
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
