Virginia Foxx: “House Resolution 465 provides for a closed rule allowing for consideration of H.R. 7, the No Taxpayer Funding for…”

“House Resolution 465 provides for a closed rule allowing for consideration of H.R. 7, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, and provides for separate consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2642, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, under a standard conference report rule. Madam Speaker, since 1976, the Hyde amendment--which prohibits the Federal funding of abortions--has been included in relevant appropriations bills. Each year it has been consistently renewed and supported by congressional majorities and Presidents of both parties. NARAL, an abortion advocacy group, has suggested that prohibiting public funds for abortion reduces abortion rates by roughly 50 percent. That means that half of the women who would have otherwise had a publicly funded abortion end up carrying their babies to term. In 1993, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Hyde amendment prevented as many as 675,000 abortions every single year. This means that millions of Americans are alive today because of the Hyde amendment. After 38 years, it is time for this life-saving amendment to become permanent law. When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, a myriad of long-established laws, including the Hyde amendment, created a mostly uniform policy that Federal programs did not pay for abortion or subsidize health plans that included coverage of abortion, with only narrow exceptions.…”