Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus and stalwart defender of mothers and the unborn, today debated on the House floor on the need to apply Hyde Amendment protections to pending legislation that would extend the COVID-era Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credit.

                The Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from paying for elective abortion, was neither included in the original ACA enacted by President Obama in 2010, nor was it appended when President Biden expanded ACA subsidies during the COVID pandemic. Smith, who has fought for the inclusion of the Hyde Amendment in the ACA since its enactment, delivered the following remarks on the House floor:

                Mr. Speaker: today, the House of Representatives is considering legislation to extend the COVID-era Affordable Care Act premium tax credit (adding more than $80 billion to the deficit over three years, according to CBO), which, unless amended, continues to force taxpayers to subsidize plans that cover abortion on demand.

                Hyde Amendment protections need to be added to this bill. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the killing of an unborn child by dismemberment or baby poison pills.

                The Hyde Amendment was not included when the ACA was enacted in 2010, nor was it included when President Biden significantly expanded subsidies during COVID.

                It’s gotten so bad, that according to a 2025 article by KFF, 12 states, including my own state of New Jersey, absolutely require all plans on the ACA marketplace to cover abortion on demand.

                The House, however, has passed my bill, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, on four separate occasions—in 2011, 2014, 2015, and 2017, and has been again introduced in this Congress—which would, among other provisions, have added Hyde protections to the ACA, but the Senate never acted.

                I remember the day, several years ago, when my friend and author of the amendment, Henry Hyde of Illinois, first learned that about one million children were alive because of his amendment. He was overcome with joy knowing that a million mothers were spared the agony of post-abortion pain, and a million children were alive and well, growing up, going to school, playing sports, dating, marrying, and having kids of their own.

                Today, that number is estimated at over 2.6 million children not aborted—about 60,000 precious lives saved per year—all because abortion subsidies have been prohibited by the Hyde Amendment in the federal Medicaid program and other HHS programs.

                It’s time to add Hyde to the ACA.

                It is time, I believe, for more of us to face the harsh reality of what abortion does to children and look beyond the slogans and surface appeal arguments.

                The so-called abortion pill—mifepristone—is baby poison that kills the unborn infant by starving the innocent child to death, and whose body is often flushed down the toilet.

                We now know, however, that mifepristone is extremely dangerous to women as well—and this is especially important because this dangerous drug is used to procure at least six out of ten abortions in the United States.

                On April 28, 2025, the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) released a report entitled, “The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals One in Ten Patients Experiences a Serious Adverse Event.” This report, led by researcher Jamie Bryan Hall, is the first in an ongoing series.

                Key Finding: The report found that more than one out of ten (10.93%) women who take the chemical abortion drug mifepristone experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days.

                Study Methods: EPPC analyzed data from an all-payer insurance claims database that includes 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions between 2017-2023.

• Large Dataset: EPPC states that this is the “largest-known study of the abortion pill” and includes “28 times as many [abortions] as were included in all FDA-cited clinical trials combined.”
•  Recent Data: While the EPPC study uses data that is no older than 2017, EPPC notes that “the FDA approval of mifepristone relies on data from more than a decade ago.”
• Representative Sample: EPPC explains that this “real-world, post-market study” is “representational of the women who obtain mifepristone abortion in the U.S.”  Unlike other clinical trials that have been conducted, this study does not recruit “a prescreened group of generally healthy women.”

                Policy Implications: The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision under the Obama and Biden administrations to progressively weaken the safety protocols around mifepristone is based on old, flawed data.  

• On the Mifeprex label, the FDA claims that less than 0.5% of women taking mifepristone experience serious adverse reactions. This claim is based on ten older clinical trials, studying a combined total of 30,966 participants. 

                Another method of aborting a baby—dismemberment—tears the child’s fragile body to pieces and includes decapitation. Until rendered unconscious or dead by this hideous procedure, the baby feels pain with every cut of the knife.

                It is no wonder that polling has consistently shown that the majority of Americans do not want their federal tax dollars to fund the destruction of children through abortion. 

                Abortion is the polar opposite of health care.

                Abortion is not health care, unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished.

                Do not ignore or trivialize the battered victim in the womb. Unborn babies need Members of Congress to be their friend and advocate, not powerful adversaries.

                Abortion violence must be replaced by compassion and empathy for women and respect for weak and vulnerable children in the womb. 

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