No retreat on the Hyde Amendment

America recently marked Religious Freedom Day, the anniversary of Virginia enacting the Statute for Religious Freedom which famously declares that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” How about compelling men and women to furnish contributions of money for the killing of human beings in the womb? A federal law called the Hyde Amendment has protected us from forced complicity in at least some of the killing for nearly 50 years and must be preserved.

Jan. 22 would have been the 53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. That decision’s result—making the laws protecting human beings in the womb that states had been passing for 150 years virtually impossible—was bad enough. Even worse was what the Supreme Court had to do to the Constitution to reach that result. Thankfully, the Court in 2022 corrected its grave error and overruled Roe v. Wade, returning the regulation of abortion to the American people and those they elect.

No amount of spin, misdirection, or fake confusion can obscure two essential facts. First, abortion kills human beings. Even the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade conceded that the presence of a second human being makes having an abortion different than exercising any other “right.” And the Court repeatedly held that even the fictional abortion right it invented did not require Americans to subsidize it.

Second, nearly all abortions occur for what can only be called “lifestyle” reasons: financial concerns, relationship issues, educational or employment priorities, and so forth. Honest advocates on both sides of the issue have long reported similar results, which have been basically unchanged for decades. (Check out surveys from 2004 and 1987.)

These two facts mean that anyone calling herself “pro-choice” should insist that no one be forced to be involved with abortion, including performing them or paying for them.

Congress has maintained that principle for nearly 50 years through the so-called “Hyde Amendment.” Named after pro-life champion Rep. Henry Hyde, it is a provision added annually to appropriation bills prohibiting the use of certain federal funds for abortion. These include Medicare, Medicaid, and programs covering federal workers and members of the military. When first enacted in 1976, the Hyde Amendment allowed taxpayer funding only of abortions where necessary to save the mother’s life and, since 1993, when a pregnancy results from rape or incest.

It’s no surprise that most Americans, including a majority of women, oppose being forced to subsidize the killing of human beings with their tax dollars. They oppose doing so directly, which the Hyde Amendment addresses, but also indirectly. Most Americans, for example, also oppose forcing taxpayers to subsidize Planned Parenthood, the nation’s top abortion provider.

President Trump recently said that Republicans in Congress should be “flexible” regarding the Hyde Amendment in current negotiations over health insurance legislation, suggesting that whether to force Americans’ complicity with killing human beings is simply one of many policy ideas in the mix. Even with the Hyde Amendment in place, taxpayers across the country are still forced to subsidize abortion in various ways. Seventeen states, for example, allow their portion of Medicaid funds to be used for abortion.

Based on data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, approximately 80 percent of the abortions that had been legal under Roe v. Wade remain legal under state laws today. Yet the abortion zealots want to press on for even more abortions, and to demand that every American, even those moving to states where abortion is illegal, help pay for abortions everywhere else. There’s nothing “flexible” about such an extreme position.

It’s bad enough that boys and girls are killed in the womb against their will. We must not make Americans pay for it against conscience.