By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews, June 3, 2021

Catholic Archbishop Joseph Naumann criticized President Joe Biden on Friday for introducing a federal budget plan with direct taxpayer funding for elective abortions.

Naumann, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pro-life committee, urged Congress to reject Biden’s plan and protect unborn children, the Church Militant reports.

Biden’s 2021 budget proposal eliminates the Hyde Amendment, a decades-old bipartisan measure that prohibits taxpayer funding for elective abortions in Medicaid. The life-saving amendment has strong public support and even Biden supported it for many years, but now the billion-dollar abortion industry wants it gone.

“For nearly half a century, the Hyde Amendment and related provisions have protected taxpayers from funding most abortions. These policies have broad support from Democrats and Republicans,” Naumann responded in a statement Friday.

“Taxpayer-funded abortion represents a failure to serve women in their maternity by funding despair and death instead of hope and life,” the archbishop continued.

He said the Hyde Amendment has “protected millions of unborn babies and mothers in difficult circumstances from the tragedy of abortion.”

Since 1976, the amendment has saved an estimated 2.5 million babies’ lives, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Biden says he is a devout Catholic, but he is advancing radical pro-abortion policies that will lead to more unborn babies being killed. Naumann and other Catholic bishops have criticized him repeatedly for openly defying his faith by advocating for the killing of unborn babies.

In May, Naumann said Catholic politicians who advocate for abortions are “creating scandal by encouraging others to do evil.” He also criticized Biden in April for lifting restrictions on taxpayer funding for the purchases of aborted babies’ body parts for scientific research.

Biden’s pro-abortion actions are radical and out of touch with most Americans.

Polls consistently show that most Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions. Significantly, a 2016 Harvard/Politico poll found that voters who make more than $75,000 were more supportive of forcing taxpayers to fund abortions (45 percent in favor), while those who make $25,000 or less were strongly against it (24 percent in favor). In other words, the people most likely to qualify for a Medicaid-covered, taxpayer-funded abortion are more likely to oppose it.

Earlier this year, pro-life Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate issued joint statements promising to fight against any effort to force taxpayers to fund abortions. Two Democrat lawmakers, U.S. Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, also said they support the Hyde Amendment.

Pro-life leaders also are urging lawmakers to fight for the rights of Americans by opposing taxpayer-funded abortions. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said Biden’s budget would violate the consciences of the strong majority of Americans.

“For more than four decades, the Hyde family of pro-life policies has kept American taxpayers out of the abortion business, with Hyde itself saving nearly 2.5 million lives,” Dannenfelser said. “The Biden budget could put longstanding, bipartisan pro-life amendments on the chopping block, and Congress must fight back. We encourage our allies to be tireless in fighting to preserve the common ground Hyde principle and to reject any budget that omits vital pro-life protections.”

This article first appeared HERE.