Two prominent US bishops commended Congress this week for advancing budget measures that would cut taxpayer funding to abortion providers and “gender transition” services.
Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop Robert E. Barron, chair of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, recently voiced strong support for provisions within the House budget reconciliation bill that would redirect funding away from organizations like Planned Parenthood.
CatholicVote reported that the proposed legislation includes provisions to block federal funds for gender procedures for minors under Medicaid, while also cutting off funding for abortion providers that do not comply with the Hyde Amendment, which only allows abortions in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk.
“For decades, Planned Parenthood has received government money and offered low-income women one terrible option: to end the lives of their babies,” the bishops stated. “More recently, they have used the same taxpayer funds to expand their destructive offerings, by promoting gender ideology and providing puberty blockers and hormones to minors, turning them into lifelong patients in the process.”
The bishops emphasized that federal funding should not be used to support practices that are harmful to human dignity.
“Americans should not be forced to subsidize abortions and ‘gender transition’ services with their tax dollars,” they said.
In addition to praising the House’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, Bishops Thomas and Barron urged lawmakers to redirect funds toward “authentic, life-affirming health care providers that serve mothers and their children in need.”
They also appealed to Congress and the Trump Administration to protect vulnerable populations, especially women and children, from “mutilating ‘gender transition’ services and the scourge of abortion.”
The post US bishops applaud congressional effort to defund abortion, ‘gender transition’ services appeared first on CatholicVote org.