Alerts

For nearly 50 years, the Hyde Amendment has protected Americans from being forced to fund abortion with their tax dollars. It has saved lives, upheld conscience rights, and reflected a moral consensus that transcends party lines.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader John Thune are standing up to defend this longstanding policy that prevents the federal government from forcing taxpayers to fund something that is morally repugnant -- abortion. We need to stand with them.

Your voice matters. Adding your name sends a clear message: Americans do not want their tax dollars used to take innocent human life.

Please take a moment to click here to sign the petition today, and then share it with friends and family who care about life, conscience, and the moral foundations of our nation.

Dear Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune,

Half a century ago the Congress of the United States adopted the first appropriations rider limiting the use of federal funds for abortion. Introduced by a young Congressman from the state of Illinois, the Hyde Amendment was the first federal enactment after the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade struck down every law protecting the unborn across the United States. From the beginning, the amendment represented both a major policy achievement, reversing the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's decision to finance abortions in the nation's Medicaid program, and a profound symbol. As the late Rep. Henry Hyde framed it in remarks of towering eloquence on the House floor, "Abortion is a lethal assault against the very idea of human rights and destroys, along with a defenseless, little baby, the moral foundations of our democracy."

Litigation and political campaigns against the Hyde Amendment have been waged for decades -- and all have failed. In 1980 the Supreme Court upheld the amendment in the face of an assault designed to finance the taking of hundreds of thousands of lives and the crushing of the conscience of American taxpayers. By the narrowest of margins, the Court recognized that the exercise of the Appropriations Power under Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution is within the sole ambit of the Congress. Leaders of both parties embraced this understanding. Despite attacks ever since, the Hyde Amendment has not only withstood every challenge but expanded to cover the whole of federal investment in health care, from the Defense Department, to the District of Columbia, to the Indian Health Service, and other agencies.

Preserving this policy is consistent with the highest principles not only of the Republican Party but of our national creed. We urge you to stand fast for the Hyde Amendment in all its manifestations and to move forward, fulfilling the promise of successive Republican Presidents to see it etched into the edifice of our nation's fundamental law.