Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is among a group of leaders across the country urging Congress to restore the Hyde Amendment to the 2022 budget — which prohibits use of federal funds for abortions. According to Carr, the Amendment was “conspicuously removed by the Biden Administration despite its inclusion in federal budgets for the last forty-five years.”
Carr isn’t the only Georgia leader ready to fight this battle. Congressman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA-11) took to social media about the issue. His latest post Wednesday evening said, “President Biden proposing to remove the #HydeAmendment from the federal budget, which has prevented taxpayer funded abortions for decades, is unconscionable. I will always work to protect the unborn and defend life.”
Repealing Hyde will likely face an uphill battle in the Senate, where 50 Republican seats are tied with 50 from Democrats and their independent allies.
In their letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the attorneys general called on Congress to resist the president’s efforts to force taxpayers who object to abortions to pay for them.
“Nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, as President Biden did for decades,” said Carr. “He only recently changed his position while on the campaign trail, yet is prepared to impose his newfound opinion on the rest of the country at the first opportunity. We are urging Congress to restore the Hyde Amendment into the budget it ultimately passes.”
According to Carr, the Hyde Amendment was first enacted in 1976 following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, and has been reenacted every year since with broad bipartisan support.
The coalition’s letter says the key to the Hyde Amendment’s four-and-a-half-decades longevity is that its purpose is clear and commonsensical: it prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions (with exceptions) because a great many taxpayers object to abortion on moral or religious grounds and, therefore, it is unconscionable to force them to pay for abortions by using their tax dollars for that purpose.
