Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes American taxpayers should be forced to pay for abortions because of income inequality. National Review reports the New York congresswoman began a petition over the weekend seeking public support for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions in Medicaid. “The Hyde amendment isn’t about abortion per se,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “The Hyde amendment is truly about equality of healthcare and healthcare access for low-income women and women of color and women that get caught in our mass incarceration system.”
Her announcement is part of a larger push by Democrats to end the popular amendment, which once had strong bipartisan support. The Democratic Party platform calls for its repeal, and every major Democratic presidential candidate wants it gone, too.
Ocasio-Cortez tried to frame the issue as a matter of equality for low-income women.
“And so the Hyde amendment is about income inequality and it’s about women’s healthcare in a system of income inequality. So I think that we need to repeal it,” she said.
She also praised former Vice President Joe Biden after he flip-flopped on the issue. Last week, Biden said he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment. If elected president, he would try to force taxpayers to pay for the killing of unborn babies.
The Hyde Amendment is a four-decades-old measure that historically has had strong bipartisan support. Biden himself supported it for many years, as did many other Democrats. However, the new Democratic Party platform calls for the amendment to be repealed, and the leading Democrats running for president support that platform.
Polls indicate that most Americans do not want their tax dollars to fund the killing of unborn babies. In 2016, when Hillary Clinton campaigned on the same issue, a Harvard University poll found that 36 percent of likely voters support overturning the Hyde Amendment.
Interestingly, the poll also 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 the ones who oppose it the most.
A January poll by Marist University found similarly strong opposition, with 75 percent saying they oppose taxpayer-funded abortions and 19 percent support it.
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