Abortion is likely to be a flashpoint in the federal budget process for fiscal 2025 following the release of a Republican proposal this week that includes 38 anti-abortion bills and initiatives.
A statement from the White House on Friday condemned the fiscal 2025 proposal from the Republican Study Committee, a large group of Republicans in the House, saying it is the latest advancement in the Republicans’ “extreme agenda” on abortion policy. The budget, which is merely a blueprint for government spending, is not the official House GOP budget but rather expresses the viewpoint of many in the Republican conference.
“As the Republican Study Committee budget makes clear, they won’t stop until a national abortion ban is in place,” said the White House statement.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who has spearheaded the abortion rights campaign for the White House, also sharply criticized the budget proposal, calling it “another full-on attack on women’s reproductive freedom.”
Among provisions in the spending bill is the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-term Abortions Act, sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), which would implement a federal-level abortion ban after 15 weeks’ gestation, or the start of the second trimester.
Several key elements of a fetus’s neurological system have developed between 10 and 15 weeks of gestation. In 2020, 93% of abortions occurred before 13 weeks’ gestation, and 6% occurred between 14 and 20 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Republican Study Committee budget proposal also eliminates the Title X program, designed to give financial assistance to states for low-income family planning services, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA.
In its place, the Republican proposal would convert funds from HRSA into block grants, which are more independently managed by states. The Republican Study Committee says that doing so “would empower communities by allowing primary care centers to operate free of federal dictates.
Following the overturning of federal protections for abortion in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, there has been significant controversy over Title X funds for states that have enacted near-total abortion restrictions.
The Biden administration has threatened to withhold Title X funding from states like Tennessee, where it is prohibited under state law to refer patients to abortion providers.
The White House said that the Title X provisions in the budget proposal “guts funding for contraception — which is supported by the vast majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle — for low-income and uninsured women.”
Also, under the Republican Study Committee budget, HHS would be prohibited from revoking Title X funding from states that have banned abortion, and Title X funds would no longer be allowed to go to abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood.
The budget proposal also includes several individual bills and initiatives that would strengthen requirements for informed consent about fetal anatomy and human development prior to a patient obtaining an abortion, as well as informing women of their rights against pregnancy discrimination by school administrators or employers.
Also included in the budget is the Life at Conception Act, sponsored by Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), which would grant children in utero 14th Amendment rights protections. In the statement of values accompanying the spending proposal, the Republican Study Committee says that the budget “recognizes that current federal policies fail to uphold the 14th Amendment and protect the right to life for our nation’s most vulnerable.”
Critics of the Life at Conception Act contend that recognizing the personhood rights of an unborn child beginning from the moment of fertilization threatens not only contraceptive access but also assistive fertility technology, such as in vitro fertilization, or IVF.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The White House chides the Life at Conception Act, saying that it “puts IVF treatment squarely on the chopping block.”
“President Biden has been clear: he will do everything in his power to fight back and protect reproductive health from these extreme attacks, and he will continue to call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade into federal law so that women can make their own health care decisions,” the White House statement said.
