Steven Ertelt – Jul 29, 2021
Late Wednesday night, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats voted for a bill that would make Americans fund abortions with their tax dollars in other nations. The House voted for the State Department funding bill, which contains language overturning the helms Amendment, which has stopped taxpayer funding of foreign abortions for decades.
The vote was 217-212, with every Republican voting agaisnt the bill and every Democrat except three voting for it. The three Democratic “no” votes — Cori Bush, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib — voted against the bill for other reasons.
The SFOPS appropriations bill removes or weakens four longstanding pro-life protections, including the Helms Amendment, which prevents taxpayer funding from being used to fund abortion overseas. It increased funding for both the United Nations Population Fund and international family planning funding. It also includes text permanently preventing a President from re-establishing the Protection Life in Global Health Assistance policy (also referred to as the Mexico City Policy), which defund Planned Parenthood and other groups that promote and perform abortions overseas.
Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, spoke on the House floor against the bill and the pro-abortion provisions.
“Since 1973, the Helms Amendment has prohibited using U.S. taxpayer funds to directly pay for abortions in other countries. Helms is the Hyde Amendment for the rest of the world. The bill before us today, however, completely reverses Helms,” he said.
