H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee today. The legislation would make the Hyde amendment prohibiting abortion funding universal and permanent, as the House Republican Pledge to America promised.
The bill’s author, New Jersey congressman Chris Smith, reaches across party lines in a statement:
“Abortion is not health care. And polls show that taxpayers strongly oppose publically funded abortion—67 percent according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll,” Smith said.
“Our new bill is designed to permanently end any U.S. government financial support for abortion whether it be direct funding or by tax credits or any other subsidy.”
“President Obama has said he wants abortion to be rare,” Smith said. “Well, Mr. Obama, here is a bill for you. Even the Guttmacher Institute, the former research arm of Planned Parenthood, says that taxpayer funding bans are a proven abortion reduction method. According to Guttmacher, studies show that when abortion is not publically funded, abortions in the covered population are reduced by roughly 25 percent.”