US Bishops Urge Support for 'No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act'

Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), urged support for the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 7) when it comes before the U.S. House of Representatives. In a letter to the House dated today, Cardinal O’Malley called the bill “one small step toward a society that promotes life and not death for unborn children and their mothers.”

“It will write into permanent law a policy on which there has been strong popular and congressional agreement for over 37 years: The federal government should not use its funding power to support and promote elective abortion, and should not force taxpayers to subsidize this violence,” Cardinal O’Malley wrote. “Even public officials who take a ‘pro-choice’ stand, and courts that have insisted on a constitutional ‘right’ to abortion, have agreed that the government has every right (in the Supreme Court’s words) to ‘encourage childbirth over abortion.’”

Cardinal O’Malley noted that this consensus is reflected in the Hyde amendment and other provisions in appropriations bills, but that such measures have not prevented the Affordable Care Act of 2010 from subsidizing health plans that cover elective abortions. H.R. 7, he wrote, “would end this glaring contradiction in federal law.” He added: “The American people, including American women, oppose public funding of abortion and want that opposition reflected in our law once and for all.”

The full text of Cardinal O’Malley’s letter is available online: www.usccb.org/about/pro-life-activities/upload/cardinal-omalley-letter-to-congress-in-support-of-hr-7-jan-28-2014.pdf. 

On January 9, Richard Doerflinger of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities testified before the House Judiciary Committee in support of H.R. 7. More information is available online: http://www.usccb.org/news/2014/14-005.cfm.