Lankford Protects Lives of the Unborn, Successfully Prevents Taxpayers from Being Forced to Fund Abortions

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on YouTube.

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) this evening offered an amendment, which he introduced earlier today, to the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion Fiscal Year 2022 budget to prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for funding of abortions and abortion-related discrimination. The amendment ensures that the budget will comply with the long-standing Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal dollars to pay for abortion, and the Weldon amendment, which protects health care providers who refuse to participate in abortion from discrimination. The amendment was adopted by a vote of 50-49.

A 2020 Marist poll found that 60 percent of Americans, including 37 percent of people who identify as pro-choice, oppose the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion. Earlier this year, Lankford introduced a similar amendment to the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Reconciliation bill to ensure health-related funding was compliant with the Hyde amendment. The amendment failed and Lankford voted against the reconciliation bill in part because it would fund abortion for the first time since 1976.  

Lankford introduced the Conscience Protection Act of 2021 to protect health care providers, including health insurance plans from government discrimination if they decline to participate in abortions. Lankford introduced the bill ahead of a hearing to consider President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Lankford pressed Xavier Becerra on how he plans to protect the conscience rights of Americans and ensure faith-based entities receive fair treatment.

Lankford introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act, which would make the Hyde amendment permanent. Earlier this year, Lankford reintroduced the bicameral Women’s Public Health and Safety Act, which gives states the authority to exclude abortion providers, like Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid funds.

Lankford’s amendment is supported by March for Life Action, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, National Right to Life, Family Research Council, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Susan B. Anthony List, Heritage Action, Concerned Women for America LAC, Family Policy Alliance, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Alliance Defending Freedom and Students for Life Action.

Transcript

This amendment would add language to prohibit funding for abortions consistent with the long-standing Hyde Amendment, which has been the law of the land since 1976. The Hyde amendment has enjoyed decades of bipartisan support, including from then-Senator Joe Biden.

It has been signed into law by Democrat and Republican presidents alike. The Hyde Amendment reflects a decades-long consensus that millions of Americans who profoundly are opposed to abortion should not be forced to pay for the taking of human lives of children, or incentivize it with their taxpayer dollars.

In a 2020 Marist poll, it found that 60 percent of Americans, including 67 percent of people who identify as pro-choice opposed the use of their taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions. Similarly, the Weldon Amendment has been in law since 2004. It protects individuals from being forced to participate in abortion if it would violate their conscience.

Millions of Americans of faith and of no faith know that the only difference between a child in the womb and outside the womb is time. Just because they are smaller people doesn’t mean they should be any less protected by law.

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