GOP Congress Should Pass The Hyde Amendment And More

Mere days after President Donald Trump took back the White House for his second term, the Republican not only rescinded the Biden administration’s Hyde Amendment violations but demanded enforcement of the longstanding provision aimed at preventing taxpayer-funded elective abortions.

The January 2025 action proved to be a significant change from the most pro-abortion administration in this nation’s history, which repeatedly weaponized Americans’ hard-earned dollars to end life in the womb. Less than one year later in January 2026, though, Trump’s tune on the Hyde Amendment seemingly changed.

In his January 6 remarks to House Republicans, Trump urged the representatives to “be a little flexible on Hyde.”

“You gotta work something. You gotta use ingenuity,” Trump said. “We’re all big fans of everything but you have to have flexibility.”

Pro-life groups such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Live Action, and Family Research Council and their leaders immediately warned Trump against betraying Republicans’ long-lived commitment to keeping U.S. tax dollars away from abortion. Some GOP members also took their complaints about Trump’s Hyde utterance online and to corporate media. Politico used objections from Republicans like Sen. James Lankford to conclude that Trump wants the GOP to be “‘flexible’ on abortion coverage issues in ongoing health care talks.”

Whether or not Trump meant what he said is up for debate (The White House did not respond to The Federalist’s request for clarification on the president’s comments). The Hyde Amendment, however, should not be.

Ever since its inception in 1976, the Hyde Amendment garnered support from enough Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House to be re-enacted. Now is not the time for Trump to jump ship on one of the few longstanding federal pro-life protections. Nor is it the time for House Republicans and GOP senators alike to cozy up with corporate media hungry to divide the party in power. Quite the opposite.

The time to pass the Hyde Amendment and several other key pieces of lifesaving legislation is now, while the GOP controls both congressional chambers and the White House. There is much work to be done so here are seven ideas on how Republicans can get cracking.

Make Hyde Permanent

The Hyde Amendment has saved millions of babies from abortion, but its role as one of the few if not only barriers protecting Americans’ tax dollars from funding abortions is undoubtedly under threat. Democrats, who have increasingly incorporated unlimited abortion for all into their party platform, have repeatedly tried and failed to strip Hyde from congressional spending bills. A handful of flipped seats in the next election could give them what they need to succeed.

Trump previously committed to make the Hyde Amendment permanent. Republicans should make do on that promise and finish the job.

Defund Planned Parenthood

The Senate, with Vice President J.D. Vance’s tie-breaking vote, effectively defunded abortion giant Planned Parenthood for one year when it passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025. The decision prompted the abortion giant to close several of its facilities, but it’s going to take more than a 12-month hiatus on its multimillion dollar flow of U.S. tax dollars to send Planned Parenthood a message.

To truly starve Planned Parenthood, Republicans in Congress need to put the decade (or more) of abortion defunding the House wanted to do last year back on the legislative table. In doing so, they will effectively guarantee Americans’ pockets won’t be robbed to support Planned Parenthood’s history of ending unborn lives (or botching its attempts to do so), allegedly flouting federal law and wasting tax dollars, dispensing castrating drugs to confused minors, reportedly trafficking baby body parts, enabling abusers, allegedly performing unlicensed procedures and violating health and safety standards, opposing free speech, and allegedly conducting procedures that have resulted in mothers’ deaths.

Pass Protections For Babies Born Alive

Deeming failure to administer a baby aid after it is born, regardless of the circumstances of his birth, as a crime should be a no brainer. Yet, states such as Virginia have allowed and even advocated for infants born alive during abortions to die under misnomered “comfort care” policies that are not stopped by current federal law.

The blue party’s support of abortion through pregnancy and even infanticide does not sit will with voters, who overwhelmingly reject Democrats’ abortion radicalism. Yet, time and time again, Democrats have confirmed their abortion extremism by snubbing protections for babies born of botched abortions.

To pull born alive protections off, Republicans need to make it a non-negotiable: Democrats get nothing legislatively until enough of them agree to the bare minimum of banning infanticide.

Repeal The FACE Act

Thirteen House Judiciary Committee Republicans voted in June to advance a bill that would repeal the unconstitutional law the Biden administration weaponized to silence and jail peaceful pro-life activists.

Repealing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act would make sense since every GOP House Judiciary Committee member and most of the Republicans in Congress claim to be pro-life in some form or fashion. It would also serve as affirmation of President Donald Trump’s historic pardon of the people prosecuted by the Biden Department of Justice under the FACE Act.

Yet, the FACE Act Repeal Act has seen no movement since mid-2025. As pro-life organizations have repeatedly noted, a Republican-controlled Congress’s failure to do away with the a law disproportionately applied to pro-lifers would enable future administrations to charge and imprison people who are committed to protecting unborn life.

Outlaw Dangerous Abortion Pills

Studies show that mifepristone is more dangerous than previously believed and can yield life-threatening complications that not only harm babies, but leave women needing emergency care.

A majority of likely voters want the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to protect women from the dangerous drug responsible for more than half of U.S. abortions, but the regulatory agency has yet to disclose how long its recently commenced review will take. States like Texas and Louisiana have tried to circumvent this waiting with laws concerning mail-order abortion pill poisonings, but their efforts are repeatedly undermined by pro-abortion states.

Republicans who purport to care about unborn babies and women alike could put the kibosh on the confusion and pain by passing legislation aimed at punishing the blue states endorsing the smuggling of abortion drugs and outlawing mifepristone altogether.

Demand Parental Consent For Minors

In fact, the Biden White House promoted a website that coached girls “15 or younger” on how to avoid obtaining their parents’ permission to get an abortion. This tactic is not uncommon, especially in states where abortion activists and constitutionally enshrined abortion for all abound.

It could be combatted by Republicans passing a federal law requiring any underage girls to not only notify their parents of their pregnancy, but receive explicit permission to undergo the psychologically and physically painful act of abortion. Democrats would no doubt oppose the legislation, which would only give the GOP more damning evidence to display during re-election campaigns focused on exposing the blue party’s extremism.

Put Some Pressure On Big Fertility

Republicans in Congress who are serious about protecting life from the moment of conception cannot continue to ignore the fact that more unborn babies are destroyed through in vitro fertilization (IVF) than abortion every year. They can start by requiring fertility facilities to be transparent about how many embryos they create and then cull, especially those discarded based on the recommendation of eugenics companies.

But the work doesn’t stop there. Even the most basic, “common sense” reproductive technology regulation would allow ethically questionable procedures like genetic testing, the premature disposal of embryos deemed “unviable,” reducing the chance of embryo survival via freezing, and the other radical practices to continue. The GOP will eventually have to legislatively address the routine discard of human lives via IVF and the dangers of the rent-a-womb industry, even if it makes some of their party members uncomfortable.

Jordan Boyd is an award-winning staff writer at The Federalist and producer of “The Federalist Radio Hour.” Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.