August 4, 2021

Pro-Life Senators Urge Biden Administration to Withdraw Proposed Abortion-Funding Rule

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), one of the 26 pro-life senators
co-authoring a letter to HHS Secretary Becerra
After the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a new rule for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would loosen protections preventing the program from funding abortion, 26 pro-life Senators sent a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra demanding that he withdraw the rule.

As written, the ACA requires abortion coverage to be billed separately in ACA plans. The proposed HHS rule removes that requirement.

In their letter to Becerra, the 26 senators objected to the administration's efforts to “ignore the congressional intent and the unequivocal legal requirements regarding abortion coverage offered through the Affordable Care Act.”

“The purpose and effect of the Proposed Rule, in tandem with partisan legislative efforts to expand the ACA, will be to increase taxpayer funding for abortion on demand, to the financial benefit of Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry,” the senators wrote.

They also argued that the rule could cause many Americans who oppose abortion to unknowingly pay for them.

The letter concludes, “HHS should rigorously enforce the separate abortion payment requirements in the law, as directed by Congress and faithfully implemented by the current regulations, and promptly withdraw the provisions in the Proposed Rule to the contrary.”