Life Advocacy Briefing

Major Challenge

CRACKS APPEARED last Tuesday between pro-life Members of Congress – House and Senate – and the President. The issue is reform of the federal government’s principal delivery of “health care,” which took a socialist turn with the adoption of ObamaCare in 2010. A major issue during this entire Congress has been the need to address expiration of ObamaCare subsidies which, in the form of enhanced tax credits, expired Jan. 1.

As we see it, President Trump is advocating replacing government payments to healthcare providers and insurers with government payments to healthcare savings accounts for American individuals and families, for the recipients of these government deposits to provide for their own health care.

But among other challenges in building consensus around the actual construction of the plan comes the question of how the federal government, under such a plan, could enforce the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding of abortions. If the federal government finances healthcare accounts for Americans to purchase their own health care, how can taxpayers be protected from their taxes being used by individuals to pay abortionists or to purchase abortion drugs?

The whispered issue came to a head Tuesday when Pres. Trump addressed House Republicans in a pep talk by which he sought to shape the upcoming mid-term election campaigns. Turning toward his plan to subsidize healthcare via depositing federal tax dollars into individual healthcare savings accounts, the President urged: “Let the money go directly to the people. Now you have to be a little flexible on Hyde. You know that. You’ve got to be a little flexible. You’ve got to work something. You’ve got to use ingenuity.”

Really, Mr. President? And how can that be accomplished?

While contemplating that question, another comes to mind. The Trump Administration – and the President himself – have been totally and vocally opposed to the mutilation of young Americans via puberty blockers and body-altering surgeries under the myth of gender change. Rightly so. But how can the freedom of subsidized healthcare savings accounts – transferring tax dollars to individual Americans for their own purchase of medical procedures and drugs – be squared with the urgent need to end the scourge of bodily mutilation in the form of “gender change?” After all, that is widely considered a scheme of “medical” procedures, and it is practiced largely by people who have medical degrees behind their businesses. Let the money go to the people where they can buy their own health care. Same issue as “Hyde,” right? The problem, of course, is our government having lured Americans into dependence on government for “health care.” But after years of building that dependence, have our leaders not woven a tangled web?

For the balance of this Life Advocacy Briefing (though closing, as we have for the past year, with “Gipper Wisdom” from President Ronald Reagan’s treatise on abortion), we will reprint commentaries relating to the President’s advocacy of “flexibility” on “Hyde,” as we view it as the most critical challenge facing the pro-life community and especially those Members of the House and Senate whose pro-life commitment is fundamental to them. We ask our readers to join us in offering prayers for them in the dilemma they face.

Are We At a Crossroads?

Jan. 7, 2026, commentary by Dan Hart, senior editor at The Washington Stand

             GOP lawmakers and pro-life groups are strongly pushing back against a suggestion by Pres. Donald Trump Tuesday that House Republicans should be “a little flexible” during healthcare legislation negotiations on the Hyde Amendment, a bipartisan provision protecting tax dollars from funding abortions that has been renewed annually for the last 50 years.

             During the President’s remarks at a day-long House Republican policy meeting, Trump discussed the possibility of a potential healthcare bill that could include a “healthcare account” that would “let the money go directly to the people.” Then he added, “You have to be a little flexible on Hyde, you know that. You gotta be a little flexible. You gotta work something … we’re all big fans of everything. But you have to have flexibility.”

             Republican lawmakers were quick to express shock and dismay in reaction to the President’s remarks. “I almost fell out of my chair,” one told Politico. Others, like Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), were more direct. “I’m not flexible on the value of every child’s life. Children are valuable, and so I’d have to get up to the context of what he meant by that,” he remarked. [Sen. Lankford was likely not in attendance to hear the remark directly, as he is not a House Member.] A senior House Republican aide further reiterated that “Hyde is non-negotiable for most conservatives. … [C]aving on Hyde is not an option.”

             Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) also made clear Tuesday that any healthcare deal that makes its way to the Senate must include Hyde protections in order to have a chance at receiving 60 votes. “Ultimately, we want to ensure that if we do anything, it’s done in a way that reforms these programs and protects them and ensures that those dollars aren’t being used to go against the practice that’s been in place for the last 50 years,” he stated [in a certain reference to Hyde].

             Meanwhile, pro-life organizations strongly defended the Hyde Amendment in reaction to Trump’s remarks. “For decades, opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion and support for the Hyde Amendment has been an unshakeable bedrock principle and a minimum standard in the Republican Party,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement Tuesday. “To suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is an abandonment of this decades-long commitment. If Republicans abandon Hyde, they are sure to lose this November. … The voters sent a GOP trifecta to Washington, and they expect it to govern like one,” Dannenfelser added. “Giving in to Democrat demands that our tax dollars are used to fund plans that cover abortion-on-demand-until-birth would be a massive betrayal.”

             Family Research Council president Tony Perkins further underscored the importance of Hyde in separating taxpayer dollars from morally objectionable procedures. “Abortion and gender experimentation are not health care,” he wrote on X. “The only flexibility needed is for government to allow taxpayers to get out of the abortion and gender mutilation business.”* Perkins elaborated on the issue Wednesday, posting, “At another time of great national divide, President Abraham Lincoln, in his last public address in April of 1865, made clear that, as he addressed reconstruction and the end of slavery, policies can be changed and modified, but moral truth is fixed, saying, ‘“Important principles may and must be inflexible.’”

             “Nothing is more important than the sanctity of human life, therefore we cannot be flexible on protecting taxpayers from being forced to fund abortion or gender mutilation procedures,” Perkins added.

             The Hyde Amendment was first introduced by Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde in 1976, [banning] the use of federal funds for most abortions (with exceptions for the life of the mother, rape or incest). The amendment has been passed by every Congress since its first introduction as a rider on appropriations bills. It is estimated that the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2.6 million babies from abortion.

             Trump’s remarks are notably at odds with the solidification of the Hyde Amendment that he himself put in place at the beginning of his second term. An executive order [EO] issued on Jan. 24, 2025, entitled “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment” stated that “It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.” The order revoked two Biden-era EOs that attempted to expand access to abortion through federal action. In September, the White House highlighted the EO as a “victory for people of faith” through “ending taxpayer funding of abortion.”

             The incongruence has left GOP lawmakers like Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) scratching their heads. “He didn’t get into specifics. I’m not exactly sure what he was thinking along those lines,” Cloud observed during Washington Week with Tony Perkins Tuesday. “But … for many of us, this is a matter of faith and conviction, and even, I think constitutionally, you can talk about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness … these founding principles that our nation was founded on. You can’t have the liberties without guaranteeing the right to life. And so this has been a long-standing policy of Congress, and we’ve made great gains on it. … Even those … who would advocate for abortion, many of them agree that there’s no reason why someone should be forced to pay for someone else’s abortion through taxing. So the idea that we need to have federal funds going to fund abortions is a non-starter for a lot of people. I think I heard that in the hallways” [outside the Trump meeting with GOP House Members].

             Cloud went on to contend that while there will likely be significant compromises that will be made between both parties in the effort to pass healthcare legislation, serious moral issues such as abortion and gender mutilation procedures must never be compromised.

             “There’s issues you can come to Congress and certainly some you have to compromise on in the sense of roads or farm policy or those kinds of things,” he acknowledged. “But when it comes to these moral issues, right and wrong, that’s what you got to stick your flag there on the side of what’s right and just. And so I think that’s where we’ll be, long term. I think that’s where everybody’s heart is, generally speaking, and so we’ll keep moving in that direction.”

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: If abortion and gender-bending torture were defined as criminal acts, as they should be, the President could move forward with his plans for health savings accounts without anyone being concerned that individuals could use those taxpayer subsidies for abortion and gender corruption. Criminalizing such atrocities would remove them from being characterized as “health care” or “medical procedures.” Another reason criminalization of abortion pursuant to the Dobbs decision should not be limited to the states.

Spokesman Clean-up?

Jan. 8, 2026, LifeSiteNews report by Calvin Freiburger

             The White House reiterated on Wednesday Pres. Donald Trump’s record of support for the Hyde Amendment and work to keep tax dollars away from abortion without ruling out a compromise on the provision, following his recent comments urging “flexibility” from Republicans in healthcare negotiations. …

             When asked about the comment the next day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied any change in position. “The President did not change the Administration’s policy,” she said. “It was Pres. Trump who signed an executive order protecting the Hyde Amendment. It’s the Trump Administration that has taken multiple actions on various fronts to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not funding the practice of abortion. What the President was saying yesterday was, Republicans – and frankly, Democrats, too – need to show a little bit more flexibility so we can actually get something done with respect to the issue of health care.

             “Republicans have amazing ideas,” Leavitt continued. “The President himself, as we spoke about earlier, has launched his most-favored-nation drug pricing initiative, has cut good deals with Big Pharma. He wants to see Republicans – and Democrats, too, if they’re willing – codify those executive orders into law, so these good deals can remain and these prices can continue to be lowered long after this President and this dealmaker-in-chief is gone. [The] President’s talked a lot about health savings accounts and giving more money back to the healthcare consumer, rather than to these giant insurance companies, and he’s been very outspoken and tough on them too, and I think you’ll see more and hear more from him directly on that issue. So he wants to see Congress get something done with respect to health care, and that was the point that he was driving home yesterday.”

             The statement touts the second Trump Administration’s record so far of opposing taxpayer funding of abortion but does not specifically rule out some sort of compromise on Hyde in healthcare negotiations, leaving the controversy unresolved. Hyde is expected to be a sticking point between Republicans and Democrats, but it remains to be seen how exactly the White House will weigh in on it until a specific proposal is in consideration.

             Speaker of the House Mike Johnson [R-LA], a firm Trump ally, stated simply in response to questions, “We are not going to change the standard that we’re not going to use taxpayer funding for abortions. I’m just not going to allow that to happen.”

             Trump established a consistently pro-life record in his first term but began to turn after the 2022 midterm elections, in which he attempted to blame the abortion issue for GOP underperformance. During his 2024 run, he changed further still, ruling out a federal abortion ban in favor of leaving the issue to the states, and changing the Republican Party platform’s long-standing pro-life language to reflect that preference.

             He also declared he would not reverse former President Joe Biden’s decision not to enforce federal law against mailing abortion pills across state lines, despite the tactic undermining state pro-life laws. Pro-lifers have hoped that stance might change with the Administration’s pledge to review the safety data of abortion pills but have been frustrated by the lack of updates amid allegations (which the Administration denies) that the review is being slow-walked until after the 2026 midterms.

             Taxpayer funding of abortion has been the issue on which Trump has most strongly continued the pro-life record of his first term. Within weeks of returning to office, he began enforcing the Hyde Amendment, reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which forbids non-governmental organizations from using taxpayer dollars for most abortions abroad, and cut millions in pro-abortion subsidies by freezing the US Agency for International Development (USAID) spending. In March, the Trump Administration froze Title X “family planning” grants to nonprofits it said violated its executive orders on immigration and … DEI initiatives, including Planned Parenthood affiliates in nine states.

             In July, Trump signed into law his controversial “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a wide-ranging policy package that includes a one-year ban on federal tax dollars going through Medicaid to entities that commit abortions for reasons other than rape, incest or purported threats to the mother’s life. These cuts have significantly impacted the bottom line of Planned Parenthood, which is currently in court trying to stop the federal government from cutting it off. …

Early Reactions

Excerpts from Jan. 9, 2026, commentary by Suzanne Bowdey in The Washington Stand

             … In what was supposed to be a GOP retreat laying out some of the biggest priorities of the year, [Pres.] Trump decided to throw a stick of dynamite into a debate that was already as combustible as it gets for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD)’s tiny majority. …

             “I almost fell out of my chair,” one House Republican admitted to Politico afterward. Thune had already conceded that getting past the Democrats’ objections to the Hyde Amendment was “probably the most challenging part” of any negotiations on the ObamaCare subsidies*. But now, with Trump’s sudden shakiness on a core value, more Senators and Congressmen are racing to underscore what an unmitigated disaster abandoning Hyde would be – not just for the party but for millions of innocent lives. …

             [Here the commentary yields quotes from Sen. James Lankford which we have included in “Are We At a Crossroads?” above. Lankford went on to say] “I do give him credit. He’s done what’s called the Mexico City Policy [to take away] funding from international abortions with taxpayer dollars. He has actually restored funding that Biden took away from pro-[lifers] with different grants that go to different states. He has been very good on defunding Planned Parenthood. So there’s been a lot of very, very strong pro-life things that he’s done.” But this, Lankford shook his head. “That’s a red line I’m not going to cross. I’m not going to break [away from] what we’re doing in health care. The VA doesn’t do abortions,” he pointed out. “DOD doesn’t do abortions. [Native Americans] health care doesn’t do abortions. We don’t do abortions with Medicare, Medicaid. We should not have it anywhere.” Right now, he explained, “The only place that abortion funding for elective abortions exists and subsidizing it is in ObamaCare. And that needs to go away.”

             Lankford, who held a press call Wednesday morning reiterating that he “cannot support something that intentionally goes around Hyde,” emphasized that he and other Republicans “have been very outspoken to the Trump Administration” on this. “They should reverse all those policies,” he said of the Covid-era decision to allow taxpayer-funded abortion in the ObamaCare subsidies. “They have had no shame in reversing other Biden policies. They should reverse this policy as well.” …

             The frustration from long-time pro-lifers is palpable. “We need to be flexible?” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) repeated. “What does that mean?”

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: The too-long accepted claim by the medical community and the media generally that abortion and gender-alteration are somehow related to health care, rather than crimes against humanity, make the President’s and otherwise-conservative Senators’ embrace of healthcare savings accounts as a replacement for ObamaCare subsidies an ethical and political impossibility.

Wisdom from the Great Communicator

EXCERPT #34 from Abortion & the Conscience of the Nation, 1983 treatise by then-President Ronald Reagan, published in Human Life Review, then as a hardcover book from Thomas Nelson Publishers; with this excerpt, we complete our week-by-week reprinting of his landmark work. We hope our readers have found it inspiring and constructive for their own advocacy for the right to life of all Americans. We encourage anyone reading this who happens to have access to the President of the United States, to please provide him a copy of this classic work and encourage him to take it to heart as a fulfillment of his own commitment to a free and just society.

             Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.