After SBC resolution, anti-Hyde effort still continues

After SBC resolution, anti-Hyde effort still continues

The Democratic Party’s effort to provide federal funds for abortion has continued a week after Southern Baptists spoke with unity against such a development.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives blocked consideration Wednesday (June 23) of legislation that would establish a permanent, government-wide ban on money for abortions. On the same day, the House Appropriations Committee released its first proposed spending bill, which would eliminate two long-standing amendments that bar federal funding for abortion.

The congressional actions followed the adoption June 15 by messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting of a resolution that denounced any attempt to rescind the Hyde Amendment. The resolution, which gained nearly unanimous approval, condemned any attempt to overturn the 45-year-old prohibition as “morally abhorrent, a violation of Biblical ethics, contrary to the natural law, and a moral stain on our nation.”

The statement by messengers on the Hyde Amendment was the latest in a four-decade-old series of resolutions opposing abortion and government funding of the procedure.

The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds in Medicaid and other programs from paying for abortions. Hyde – which has reportedly saved the lives of about 2.5 million unborn children – and similar bans in other federal programs must be approved each year as “riders” to spending bills.

Committed to life

Elizabeth Graham of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) told Baptist Press, “We are thankful that our convention of churches once again made it clear we are committed to standing for life.

“It becomes all that more important when moves are made in Washington to remove Hyde and other critical pro-life protections from the proposed federal budget,” said Graham, the ERLC’s vice president of operations and life initiatives, in written comments. “House Democrats should immediately reverse course.”

If the House does not retain Hyde and other funding bans, Graham urged the Senate to act “to stay within precedent and keep long-held, pro-life commitments to ensure no taxpayer resources are ever used for abortion.”

The ERLC, which has worked for a comprehensive ban on federal funding of abortion, has included the protection of pro-life riders in spending legislation as one of its priorities in its 2021 Public Policy Agenda. In May, then-ERLC President Russell Moore joined more than 60 other pro-life leaders in asking leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives to maintain the bans.

‘Moral evil of abortion’

The resolution approved by Southern Baptists meeting in Nashville urged President Joe Biden and Congress to preserve Hyde and all other pro-life amendments, as well as “to prevent taxpayers from being complicit in the moral evil of abortion.” It also urged Southern Baptists to “work through all available cultural and legislative means to end the moral scourge of abortion as we also seek to love, care for, and minister to women who are victimized by the unjust abortion industry.”

Republicans sought to bring the comprehensive funding ban – the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (H.R. 18) – to the House floor for a vote Wednesday, but the procedural move failed in a 218-209 party-line roll call. With the procedural effort, the GOP launched an “18 Days for H.R. 18” attempt to gain unanimous consent for House consideration.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chief sponsor of the proposed ban, said during debate before the procedural vote, “The right to life is for everyone, not just the planned, the privileged or the perfect,” according to excerpts of his remarks provided by his office.

Smith referenced Biden’s support for the Hyde Amendment during his 36 years in the U.S. Senate. Smith quoted from a 1994 letter, written by Biden 21 years into his career as a senator, in which he told a constituent, “[T]hose of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them. As you may know, I have consistently – on no fewer than 50 occasions – voted against federal funding of abortions.”

Biden reversed his position on Hyde in 2019, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination. In late May of this year, Biden released a $6 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2022 that excluded the Hyde Amendment and other abortion funding bans in federal programs.

While Hyde has long been backed by a significant percentage of pro-choice advocates, Democratic opposition to the amendment has grown in recent years. The ban has saved the lives of more than 2.4 million unborn children since its inception, according to an estimate in July 2020 by Michael New, veteran researcher and associate scholar of the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Democrats for Life of America tweeted Thursday (July 24), “Hyde saves lives.”

The House Appropriations Committee’s draft for its Financial Series and General Government spending bill showed it fails to include two long-standing, pro-life amendments:

  • The Dornan Amendment, which prohibits federal funds, as well as congressionally approved local ones, from paying for elective abortions in the District of Columbia.
  • The Smith Amendment, which bars federal employee health plans from paying for abortions.

Christian LoBue of NARAL Pro-choice America, a leading abortion rights organization, hailed the exclusion of the abortion funding bans from the spending legislation as “a monumental moment for reproductive freedom.”

But Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, said if those amendments are not included in the final budget, “taxpayers would be forced to pay for as many as 1,500 more abortions each year in D.C. alone.”


Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.