'Senate Republicans are going to continue standing up for life, standing up for taxpayers, and standing up for the conscience rights of millions of Americans who don't want the government laundering their hard-earned money to abortion providers.'
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the Hyde Amendment:
"This week, Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee are doing something so radical that it hasn't been done for decades:
"They are advancing an annual funding bill that leaves out the Hyde Amendment, the commonsense prohibition on forcing taxpayers to fund abortion.
"Since the 1970s, abortion has claimed the lives of more than 60 million unborn children.
"But at the very, very least, the mainstream, bipartisan Hyde Amendment has ensured that taxpayers' hard-earned money is not funneled to this brutal practice.
"A broad, bipartisan coalition agreed the American taxpayer should not be forced to underwrite this nightmare. And by the way, a strong majority of Americans still agree!
"For decades, nearly his entire career, then-Senator Joe Biden was a reliable supporter of Hyde protections. One letter to a constituent read like this.
"Quote: 'Those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.'
"But a couple years ago, on the presidential campaign trail, our former colleague changed his tune. He let the demands of the increasingly radical left overcome a principle he'd held for decades.
"So earlier this year, the President's budget request obligingly proposed ending this longstanding protection. Yet another way in which the Administration that sold itself as moderate and unifying is now sprinting way to the left.
"And this week, the House is following through.
"In today's Democratic party, there is no room to dissent from the far left's culture war — even in the most modest, most longstanding, and most widely popular ways.
"Senate Republicans are going to continue standing up for life, standing up for taxpayers, and standing up for the conscience rights of millions of Americans who don't want the government laundering their hard-earned money to abortion providers.
"Republicans will still stand with the majority of the American people, even if our colleagues across the aisle have given in to the most radical voices."
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