The House GOP is pushing a vote on a bill for the Department of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education.
The bill would implement a variety of spending cuts.
House Resolution 5894 would end grants to family planning clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, and protect the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being explicitly used for abortions.
According to the bill, “None of the funds in this Act may be used to support, administer, oversee, or issue a grant, contract, or cooperative agreement for the purposes of providing information on, promoting access to, or facilitating an abortion.”
“None of the funds provided in this Act may be used to conduct or support research using human fetal tissue if such tissue is obtained pursuant to an induced abortion,” it adds.
The bill also prohibits funding for gain-of-function research.
“This bill represents a clear first step toward returning to fiscal responsibility, while ensuring that funding for critical and high-priority functions are maintained,” said Representative Robert Aderholt (R-AL), who sponsored the bill.
“The bill maintains the longstanding Hyde amendment to ensure that taxpayer funds are not used for abortion-on-demand, and that no one is forced to participate in an abortion or refer for one under federal programs,” Aderhold stated, adding that the bill “also makes sure that taxpayer funds are not used to circumvent state laws restricting access to abortion and ensures that federal research funds are not used on human fetal tissue obtained from an elective abortion.”
“In response to the executive branch overreach of this Administration, this bill prohibits funding for programs focused solely on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it eliminates funding for Planned Parenthood and other controversial grantees.”
Aderholt introduced a bill at the beginning of November to prevent federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.
“This bill reflects the will of the American people,” Aderholt declared at the time. “It is important that funding intended to support the health, safety, and well-being of women is not instead funding the killing of unborn babies or the pursuit of a radical agenda.”
The White House said in a statement that HR 5984 “fails American children and families.”
“Its cruel cuts purposefully dismantle decades of progress in early childhood investments, education, maternal health and equity, public health, and more. It puts radical right-wing politics over the needs of the American people by eliminating consequential programs Americans rely on every day and instead seeks to forcibly inflict deeply unpopular policies with poison pill riders. And of the programs that do survive, many – even those with broad bipartisan support – are cut so dramatically that they would struggle to deliver for Americans,” a document reads.
“This bill is counter to everything America stands for; its 28 percent cut of $64 billion will rob our children of the quality education they deserve and eliminate present and future opportunities for Americans in all stages of life. It jeopardizes maternal, pediatric, and public health while purposefully undermining the safety, wellbeing, and prosperity of our Nation.”
