March for Life

Biden’s Values: Breakdown of the FY 2022 President’s Budget

By

Biden’s Values: Breakdown of the FY 2022 President’s Budget

President Joe Biden once said, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value.” With his newly released $6 trillion spending proposal that removes the decades-old, bipartisanly supported Hyde Amendment, President Biden has shown the American people exactly what he values.

Breakdown of Biden’s Pro-Abortion Budget

Eliminates the Hyde Amendment (pg. 807) – which would allow taxpayer funding for abortion on demand through Medicaid, Medicare disability, and other programs funded under the Labor/Health & Human Services appropriations bill. Before the Hyde Amendment took effect in 1980, an estimated 300,000 abortions were performed annually using taxpayer funds. The Hyde Amendment has saved an estimated more than 2.4 million lives since it first became policy in 1976, and it routinely saves more than 60,000 lives in the United States every year. 

Eliminates the Dornan Amendment (pg. 1272), which would allow the District of Columbia to fund abortions through its Medicaid program. When the Dornan amendment was last gutted in FY2010, D.C. funded 300 abortions through Medicaid.   

Eliminates the Aderholt Amendment (pg. 188), which would lift the Federal ban on gestating gene-edited embryos, such as three-parent embryos. 

19% increase in funding for the Title X family planning program by $53.521 million to $340 million from $286.479 million (pg. 438). Once the Biden administration finalizes its new Title X rules, this funding will serve as a slush fund for Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. Biden promised on the campaign trail that the public option would cover abortion on demand. 

Calls for making permanent the expanded Obamacare premium tax credits (which subsidize abortion coverage) under the American Rescue Plan Act, and the creation of a so-called “public option” for a government-run health insurance plan offered through the Obamacare exchanges. (pg. 24) Biden promised during his campaign that any public option would cover abortion on demand. 

Increases the funding floor earmark for international family planning/reproductive health by $8.7 million to $583.7 million from $575 million (pg. 916). This is a slush fund for international pro-abortion organizations including International Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International, which can now receive these funds due to Biden’s rescission of Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance. 

72% increase in funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) by $23.5 million to $56 million from $32.5 million (pg. 125 of State Dept request). The UNFPA promotes abortions around the world and supports China’s forced abortion and sterilization regime.

Eliminates conditions on U.S. funds to the UNFPA, including requirements that the UNFPA not fund abortions and that funds not be directly used for coercive abortion programs in China (pg. 916) 

Adds a sweeping notwithstanding authority for funding “to promote gender equality” overseas, which would bypass the Helms Amendment and Siljander Amendments, to potentially allow taxpayer funding for abortion or abortion lobbying overseas. (pg. 916) 

Replaces the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Fund with the ideologically rebranded, “Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund” (pg. 916), made further dangerous by the aforementioned notwithstanding authority for gender equality activities. 

Eliminates the application of the Helms Amendment to the Complex Crises Fund (pg. 832), which could allow those funds to pay for abortions 

Expands the HIV/AIDS Working Capital Fund (WCF) to include pharmaceuticals and other products for global health activities broadly, including contraceptive commodities, and via funds from non-U.S. Government donors, potentially abortion-related commodities (pg. 901). 

Expands the notwithstanding authority for bypassing country prohibitions to include global health activities more broadly, including contraceptives (pg. 916). 

Eliminates provisions removing time limitations on embryo storage for IVF procedures funded by the Department of Defense (pg. 329) 

The Biden/Harris budget is radically out of touch with the American people on the issue of taxpayer support for abortion. The majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars funding abortion, yet the Biden/Harris administration removed the long-standing – since 1976 – Hyde protections against such a policy. Joe Biden once said, ‘Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.’  Sadly, this administration does not value human life nor does it represent the wishes of mainstream America on such a critical issue.

Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action

By

March for Life Statement on Biden/Harris Budget

The Biden/Harris budget is radically out of touch with the American people on the issue of taxpayer support for abortion. The majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars funding abortion, yet the Biden/Harris administration removed the long-standing – since 1976 – Hyde protections against such a policy. Joe Biden once said ‘don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.’  Sadly, this administration does not value human life nor does it represent the wishes of mainstream America on such a critical issue.”

Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action

By

Buckle up, it’s going to be an exciting year for the pro-life movement

The Supreme Court has taken up one of the most important abortion-related cases in decades – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In doing so, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether abortion limits placed prior to 15 weeks gestation are constitutional or not.  

Because a decision will not be reached until next summer, this next year will be a hard-fought battle – not only in the courts – but also for public opinion on the matter. 

With tremendous advances in science and technology, we know so much about the unborn baby at fifteen weeks, including that the baby has all of his/her functioning organs, a visible skeleton, and is practicing things like sucking and swallowing! 

Additionally, public opinion polls for well over a decade show that 65% or more of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in the second trimester. As of January 2020, Marist Poll found that number to be 7 in 10 Americans who support limiting abortion only to the first three months of pregnancy. 

Despite this, immediately following the Supreme Court announcement, pro-abortion advocacy organizations began working overtime to convince Americans they don’t want the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the unborn.  

While we have come a long way in educating the American public about the humanity of the unborn child, this moment is a critical one for education. Please stay informed! 

Here are a few recent interviews, opinion pieces and articles that explain the importance of this case:  

President of the March for Life Explains Significance Behind US Supreme Court’s Announcement 

Supreme Court to Hear Major Abortion Case 

A Time for Courage on the Supreme Court 

Democracy Is the Issue in the Mississippi Abortion Case

Supreme Court Will Consider Mississippi’s 15-Week Abortion Ban

We hope you find these resources useful, and we will be sure to keep you in the loop as this case proceeds!  

In the meantime, please join us in praying for a favorable outcome that honors the dignity and humanity of the unborn child.  

By

New Title X Rules Would Restore Sanger’s Eugenics Project

The Title X program was authorized in 1970 for the purpose of reducing population growth by providing family planning services to low-income women. From nearly the beginning, the program warranted concerns due to its lack of parental notice for minors, the sharing of resources between abortion clinics and Title X clinics in the same facility – or “co-location” — and mandatory abortion referrals for pregnant women. But perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Title X program is that it has provided a high level of funding for the nation’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood. Most recently that number was around $60 million per year. This amounts to the government subsidizing abortion without any mandate from the American people.

Some argue that Title X family planning dollars cannot, by law, directly pay for abortions. But these same skeptics ignore the fact that the funding is used to offset the operational and overhead costs of abortion businesses that both encourage and refer for abortions while rendering Title X services. According to the organization’s current president, Planned Parenthood affiliates “proudly” performed 345,672 abortions in FY2018. During this time period Planned Parenthood claimed almost $2 billion in net assets and took in a total of $616.8 million in taxpayer funding — an increase from $543.7 million the year prior.

When the Trump administration’s proposed Title X rules, which were designed to realign with the original intent of the program, required physical and financial separation of abortion and Title X services, Planned Parenthood decided to drop out of it. The abortion business bemoaned the fact that it would lose about $60 million in taxpayer funds that could have helped poor women. But financially dropping out of the Title X program made sense in terms of Planned Parenthood’s bottom line. The $60 million was more than made up for between an increase in Medicaid funding and fundraising off of opposition to the pro-life Trump administration. In fact, Planned Parenthood took in $591 million in donations in 2018, an increase of over 50% from 2014 levels.

Despite this healthy financial picture – thanks to American taxpayer support — the Biden administration is eager to enrich Planned Parenthood even more. The administration’s proposed Title X rules once again permit co-location and mandate abortion referrals, but they also include some troubling additions. The proposed rules specify that, in determining whether to award Title X project funding, the department of Health and Human Services must consider “the ability of the applicant to advance health equity.”

Advancing “health equity” is the federal government’s way of saying Title X grant recipients, the largest of which has been Planned Parenthood, must target underprivileged, minority populations for reduction. This comes just as Planned Parenthood is attempting to distance itself from its eugenicist founder Margaret Sanger, who also targeted underprivileged minorities, and particularly communities of color.

Since the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, some have estimated more than 19 million African American children have been lost to abortion. Tragically, Sanger’s strategy of targeting this minority has been successfully implemented by Planned Parenthood. In 2015, African Americans made up only 13.4% of the population and yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control, they accounted for 36% of abortions performed annually in the United States.

In the name of “equity,” the Biden administration is transforming the Title X program into a taxpayer funded eugenics project in the Planned Parenthood tradition of Margaret Sanger. The U.S. government should play no role in institutionalizing the racially discriminatory strategies of Planned Parenthood and its founder. The abortion industry’s leader is far too controversial (and wealthy) to be worthy of public support.

By

March for Life Statement on SCOTUS hearing Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

March for Life works for the day when abortion is unthinkable, but currently the United States is one of only seven countries – including China and North Korea – that allows abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. An overwhelming majority of Americans agree that this goes way too far, in fact 70% think abortion should be limited to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy. States should be allowed to craft laws that are in line with both public opinion on this issue as well as basic human compassion, instead of the extreme policy that Roe imposed.”

Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life