TCA’s Ashley McGuire Defends Hyde Amendment’s 50-Year Ban on Taxpayer Funding for Abortion

Debate over the Hyde Amendment has become a flashpoint in congressional negotiations this week over extending or reforming Affordable Care Act subsidies and healthcare funding. Pro-life advocates point to the Hyde Amendment’s impact in saving millions of lives from abortion (except in extreme cases such as rape or endangerment of a woman’s life), and insist the ban must be preserved or even strengthened and codified into permanent law, while others push to waive its restrictions in any final health care package. The amendment remains in effect as of now, but its future application is under debate on Capitol Hill this week.

Ashley McGuire of the Catholic Association released this statement on the case.  

“Americans are united in their opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion enshrined in the Hyde Amendment for nearly 50 years. That opposition boasts a broad and bipartisan consensus and forms one of the only areas of common ground on one of the most divisive issues in American politics. Defending this position has always been at the heart of the pro-life movement. Pro-lifers will not abandon the Hyde Amendment; to do so would be to abandon the core of who we are and why we fight.” 

– Ashley McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, “Conversations with Consequences.” 

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