The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said in a statement on Wednesday that she was “especially proud” her bill removed “restrictions that have prohibited safe abortion and health care services for people in low-income countries for decades.”
Rep. Fortenberry, meanwhile, said the United States would be exporting abortion at the taxpayers’ expense.
“We are about to export our most divisive cultural issue – our pain, our woundedness – onto the poor of the world. Pope Francis has called this ‘ideological colonization.’ It’s unfair, it’s wrong, and it smacks of arrogance and elitism,” Fortenberry said on the House Floor on Tuesday while the bill was under consideration.
Lee’s bill would also permanently repeal the Mexico City Policy, dubbed by abortion supporters as the “global gag rule.” The executive policy can be instituted or repealed by a president’s administration and is not permanent law. It bars funding of foreign NGOs that provide or promote abortions as a method of family planning.
Before the final House vote to pass the funding bill on Thursday, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) offered a Motion to Recommit which would have reinstated pro-life provisions removed from the legislation. His effort failed by a vote of 208-217. Cole’s motion included language forbidding funding of abortion and abortion coverage, as well as restricting funding of abortion in the District of Columbia.
“Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for child dismemberment,” said Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, on Wednesday. “Rather than funding the death of a baby, I believe we must increase access to maternal and prenatal care and ensure access to safe blood and better nutrition.”
The legislation passed by the House on Wednesday and Thursday not only omitted the Hyde and Helms amendments, but also excluded other pro-life policies included each year in budget bills.
The Weldon, Kemp-Kasten, Smith, and Dornan amendments all restrict funding of abortions or pro-abortion causes. Normally included as part of government funding bills, none of the policies were included in the bills that passed the House this week.
The Weldon Amendment prohibits federal funding of state and local governments that discriminate against health care workers or providers who refuse to participate in, pay for, or cover abortions. The Kemp-Kasten Amendment restricts funding of international groups complicit in forced sterilizations and forced abortions. The Smith Amendment restricts funding of abortion coverage in federal employee health plans, and the Dornan Amendment bars federal funding of abortions in the District of Columbia.
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.