President Trump and congressional leaders reached a sweeping bipartisan budget on Monday to suspend the debt ceiling and increase federal spending limits. Fiscal hawks concerned with unmanageable government spending are right to be concerned. But the budget, which awaits congressional approval, does offer an important victory: It protects the Hyde Amendment and strips abortion providers, like Planned Parenthood, of federal Title X funding.
The budget shows Trump is serious about prioritizing pro-life policies. If Congress passes the agreement, Democrats’ hands will be tied when it comes to important policy priorities like repealing the Hyde Amendment, a law that prohibits using federal funds for abortion. This is a serious blow to Democrats who have relied on “poison pill” riders to strip the pro-life movement of legislative authority.
The budge also ensures that the Protect Life Rule, which prohibits recipients of Title X family planning funds from performing or referring women to abortions, will go into effect. This law is, in part, an extension of the Hyde Amendment: It makes sure federal funds aren’t going toward abortive services. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony List, said in a press release that the Protect Life Rule simply “draws a bright line between abortion and family planning, stopping abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood from treating Title X as their private slush fund.”
It’s working. Just days after the Department of Health and Human Services announced the Protect Life Rule would go into effect, Planned Parenthood agreed to stop accepting federal Title X funds so it could continue performing and referring women to abortion. This law strips more than $60 million in federal funding from Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
The fight isn’t over yet. As 2020 approaches, Democrats will continue to push the party further left on abortion. We saw it when Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden came out against the Hyde Amendment, when Kirsten Gillibrand said protecting access to abortion is a “moral” obligation, and when politicians throughout the Democratic Party praised New York for passing a radical law that allows a woman to obtain an abortion at any point in her pregnancy.
“Vigilance will be needed,” Dannenfelser said, if the pro-life movement is going to keep moving forward. But this budget should give us hope. If anything, it proves that for the first time in a long while, pro-lifers have an important ally in the White House.
