'A massive betrayal': Pro-lifers react to Trump's Hyde Amendment comments

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, January 07, 2026

Multiple pro-life activists and a Christian conservative leader are criticizing President Donald Trump for saying Tuesday that Republicans need to be “flexible” in their demands for stricter rules preventing tax dollars from being used to fund abortions through healthcare subsidies. 

Trump discussed his views on healthcare while speaking at a retreat for Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives as U.S. Congress ponders a path forward on healthcare policy following the lapse of Affordable Care Act subsidies. He urged the conservative lawmakers to “let the money go in the healthcare account or however you do it” and “let the money go directly to the people.” 

“You have to be a little flexible on Hyde,” Trump said, referring to the Hyde Amendment, a legislative provision that has been attached to spending bills since the 1970s that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions.

The measure was enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalized abortion nationwide. Last fall, pro-life advocacy groups called on Congress to close what they call loopholes in the Affordable Care Act that have allowed subsidies to fund plans covering elective abortions. 

“You got to be a little flexible," Trump told Republicans. "You got to work something. You got to use ingenuity. You got to work. We’re all big fans of everything, but you got to be flexible, you have to have flexibility.” 

Pro-life advocacy groups and leaders believe that Trump, who was often credited during his first term for advancing pro-life polices, appears to be in favor of keeping the door open for taxpayer funding of abortion through Affordable Care Act subsidies. 

“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," Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser noted in a statement published Tuesday.

Dannenfelser, who co-chaired Trump's pro-life coalition during the 2016 election, said the suggestion that Republicans should be “flexible” on the matter is “an abandonment of [the party's] decades-long commitment." She claimed that “If Republicans abandon Hyde, they are sure to lose this November” in the midterm elections.

“The voters sent a GOP trifecta to Washington and they expect it to govern like one. 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,” she added. 

“President Trump stated very clearly last year, ‘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,'" she continued. “President Trump and congressional Republicans must follow through, not abandon, this commitment."

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, offered a similar analysis, saying it is "extreme" to force "Americans to bankroll the taking of innocent human life.”

“For nearly five decades, the Hyde Amendment has served as a moral and legal firewall, protecting Americans from being forced to subsidize abortion through their tax dollars,” she said in a statement. “Its principles must not be weakened, sidelined, or quietly erased through back-door funding schemes.”

Trump’s remarks on healthcare come just days after the Affordable Care Act subsidies designed to help Americans afford the cost of health insurance expired. The extension of the subsidies was a major sticking point in the government shutdown that dominated the news cycle late last year. 

The longstanding Hyde Amendment ties in with the ongoing debate as federal subsidies are used to purchase health insurance plans "that include abortion coverage,” National Right to Life contends. 

“While the law contains accounting gimmicks meant to obscure this reality, the practical effect is unmistakable: taxpayer dollars are deeply entangled in subsidizing plans that pay for abortions,” the organization lamented.

"[T]he Affordable Care Act broke with long-standing precedent by allowing abortion coverage to be embedded in subsidized health plans,” Tobias maintained. “No American should be forced to fund abortion as the price of helping families afford health care.” 

Tony Perkins, president of the Christian conservative think tank Family Research Council, reacted to Trump’s comments in an X post, saying “Abortion and gender experimentation are not health care."

“The only flexibility needed is for the government to allow taxpayers to get out of the abortion and gender mutilation business," Perkins said. 

In his comments at the Republican retreat, Trump expressed disapproval of current healthcare policy and encouraged GOP lawmakers to move forward on a new plan despite likely opposition from Democrats. The president attributed Democrats’ opposition to healthcare plans to the fact that they are “owned by the insurance companies.”

Currently, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has a razor-thin Republican majority, with the GOP holding just 218 seats to the Democrats’ 213. While a Republican-backed healthcare plan can pass the U.S. House with a simple majority, the situation is more complicated in the Senate, where most legislation needs 60 votes to pass. 

In the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, the GOP only holds 53 seats, meaning at least seven Democrats would need to back a GOP healthcare plan. Republicans can circumvent the 60-vote threshold by using the budget reconciliation process to pass a preferred healthcare plan, though legislation passed under this process is subject to strict rules that may make passage more difficult. 

During the debate last year, Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., appeared to condition support for the subsidy extension on the inclusion of stricter restrictions on coverage of abortion procedures. Thune said Tuesday that there is "potentially a path forward" on Affordable Care Act talks but stressed that Hyde is “probably the most challenging part of this.”