WASHINGTON, D.C. (BP and local reports) – Southern Baptist U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) saved the Hyde Amendment that bars taxpayer funds from paying for abortions when the Senate voted 50-49 on Aug. 10 in favor of an amendment he introduced during debate on a budget resolution.
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, had stripped his budget proposal of the Hyde Amendment before sending it to Congress. Democrats in Congress had vowed to defend the removal of the Hyde Amendment as the budget resolution makes its way through the bicameral national legislating body.
In the Senate where Democrats and Republicans are tied with 50 seats each, Democrat West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin provided the vote that put the Lankford amendment over the top. Manchin, a Roman Catholic and described by some political observers as a moderate, chose to vote with his Democrat colleagues in passing the larger, $3.5 trillion resolution to which the Lankford amendment is attached.
Also included in the Lankford amendment is language that blocks funding for government programs that discriminate against individual health care professionals and institutions that object to abortion.
Chelsea Sobolik, acting public policy director at the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) in Nashville, described Lankford’s effort as “certainly helpful for the pro-life cause.”
“As lawmakers craft legislation, they should start from a foundation that protects life — something that has been a source of bipartisan agreement for decades,” she said in written comments. “This amendment restores that policy in this budget process.”
The ERLC is urging the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives “to follow the Senate’s lead and ensure these important pro-life riders are part of the budget resolution,” she reported.
Following its passage in the Senate, the budget resolution containing the Lankford amendment goes to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration. If changes are made by the House, negotiators from chambers will meet to iron out the differences. If the Senate and House agree to the negotiated budget resolution, it will then go to Biden for his signature.
Messengers to the 2021 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in June in Nashville approved a resolution that opposed any attempt to rescind the Hyde Amendment and urged the retention of all pro-life “riders,” which must be approved each year in spending bills.
Lankford, who holds a masters of divinity degree from Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth, served 15 years as director of student ministry for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and as director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp.
The Hyde Amendment has saved the lives of more than 2.4 million unborn children since its inception, according to an estimate in July 2020 by Michael New, veteran researcher and associate scholar of the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute.
