U.S. readers: Email your lawmakers – we must protect the Hyde Amendment!
(LifeSiteNews) — President Donald Trump told House Republicans that “you’ve got to be a little flexible on Hyde” as he pushed GOP legislators to loosen their stance on funding abortions with federal tax dollars in a speech to the House GOP Conference at the Kennedy Center on Tuesday.
According to Politico, he “also asked them to … ‘own’ in-vitro fertilization policy,” a reference to his policies to reduce the cost of IVF, announced last year.
BREAKING: Trump calls to make the Hyde Amendment “flexible,” potentially opening the door to taxpayer-funded abortion.
The GOP must stand firm for human life.⁰
No exceptions. No inch given.If you sacrifice Hyde, you sacrifice innocent human children. pic.twitter.com/2oI4fJk0o0
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) January 6, 2026
The Hyde Amendment, which first took effect in 1980, bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Prior to its passage, an average of 300,000 babies were aborted every year with taxpayer dollars. The Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved over 2.6 million lives as of 2025. Less than a year ago, on January 24, Trump signed an executive order called “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” which reaffirmed:
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.
READ: Faith-based clinic looks to fill gap left by Planned Parenthood closings with life-affirming care
Trump hopes to champion healthcare policies in the leadup to the midterm elections this year. “Health care, it’s never been our issue,” Trump said. “It should be our issue.” Trump pitched his “most favored nation” plan to push down prescription drug prices by “tying the amount that Americans pay for prescriptions to the lower levels paid by other wealthy countries”; several large companies have already signed on to the plan.
According to Trump, the midterms could be won “on just that thing, if we did nothing else” – but if the GOP loses their razor-thin majority in the House, he might be impeached for a third time. “If we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be – I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” he said. This means that the GOP has to do everything to win – even compromise on abortion. “You have to be a little flexible on Hyde,” he said. “You know that. You gotta be a little flexible. You got to work something. You got to use ingenuity. You got to work.”
Thus far, Politico noted, “Conservatives showed little interest in following Trump’s lead.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who spoke at the national March for Life last year, noted that the Hyde Amendment was “the most challenging part” of striking a deal with the Democrats; Florida Senator Rick Scott bluntly told reporters that: “Taxpayers should not be paying for abortions.”
Trump also urged Republicans to follow his lead on IVF, praising his own decision to promote IVF after a court in Alabama ruled that frozen embryos are children in 2024. “Fortunately, I picked it up, and we own the issue. But now I understand they’re trying to make a case on fertilization – you can’t let them do that,” Trump said. IVF has destroyed millions of pre-born lives; a mere 7 percent of embryos created via IVF result in a live birth, and pro-lifers have vocally opposed Trump’s pro-IVF policies.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, one of the country’s most powerful pro-life groups, issued a press release immediately stating that “Hyde is non-negotiable.”
“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,” stated SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser. “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,” she continued. “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.”
Trump’s call for support for IVF and abandoning the Hyde Amendment are unsurprising. While his allies refer to him as the “most pro-life president,” his approach to the abortion issue has been one of politics rather than principle. During the 2024 election, when he feared that a pro-life position would hurt his electoral chances, he intervened personally to gut the GOP platform of its pro-life plank, expressed support for the abortion pill, and condemned six-week abortion bans as extreme.
“It is unjust to force taxpayers to pay for abortion,” noted Ryan T. Anderson, ethicist and co-author of Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing. “It is also politically unpopular. Congressional Republicans should hold the line on Hyde.” Nearly six in ten Americans oppose federal funding for abortion.
