Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Joe Biden’s taxpayer-funded abortion order is government at its worst
Joe Biden’s taxpayer-funded abortion order is government at its worst
Jan 21, 2026 11:29 PM

Today with one stroke of the pen, President Joe Biden vitiated three unalienable rights. Biden signed a presidential memorandum order forcing U.S. taxpayers, including those with religious objections, to fund abortion-on-demand and abortion advocacy around the world.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan enacted the Mexico City Policy, which excluded foreign non-governmental agencies that “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning” from receiving U.S. Agency for International Development funds. President Donald Trump’s Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy expanded this to include largesse distributed by “all departments or agencies” of the U.S. government. Biden’s action reverses that policy.

Both Reagan and Trump allowed abortion referrals in the cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. Thus, today’s executive action requires U.S. taxpayers to pay for the promotion of elective abortion, or abortion-on-demand, which most Americans find objectionable – and which traditional Christianity teaches is sinful.

“Funneling U.S. tax dollars to abortion groups overseas is an abhorrent practice that flies in the face of the ‘unity’ Joe Biden and Kamala Harris promised to inspire,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-lifeSusan B. Anthony List.

A new Marist/Knights of Columbus poll released on Wednesday found that 77% of all Americans – including two-thirds of voters who describe themselves as “pro-choice” and 55% of Democrats – oppose taxpayer funding of abortion overseas.

A sizable majority of Americans also oppose taxpayer funding for U.S. abortions (58%), including nearly one-third of Democrats (31%) and two-thirds of independents (65%).

Biden also paved the way for U.S. organizations that perform or refer for abortion to receive Title X funding. The Trump administration denied Planned Parenthood $60 million in taxpayers’ dollars when the nation’s leading abortion provider withdrew from the women’s health program rather than stop performing terminations.

Dannenfelser said the reversal creates “a slush fund” for abortion providers and represents “a payout to the abortion industry that backed [the Biden-Harris] political campaign.”

Whatever the reasoning behind the expansion of elective abortion funding, one must seek it outside of the rationale offered up by the Biden administration. The measure fails on its own logic.

Take the White House “fact sheet” on the memo, which asserts that “Black, Indigenous and other people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and those with low es” have been “denied access to reproductive health care” – a euphemism for abortion.

In reality, non-Hispanic black women accounted for 33.6% of all U.S. abortions in 2018, although blacks make up only 13.4% of the U.S. population. “In pared with non-Hispanic White women, abortion rates and ratios were 3.4 and 3.0 times higher among non-Hispanic Black women and 1.7 and 1.4 times higher among Hispanic women,” according to the CDC’s 2018 Abortion Surveillance. “Non-Hispanic Black women had the highest abortion rate (21.2 abortions per 1,000 women) and ratio (335 abortions per 1,000 live births).”

The CDC does not measure the e of women who obtain abortions. However, the Guttmacher Institute conducted a groundbreaking study in 2004 investigating the “Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions.” It found that 73% of women say they sought an abortion, because they “can’t afford a baby now.”

If this executive action truly sought to redress women’s inability to obtain an abortion on the grounds of race or e, it is a solution in search of a problem. Politicians who wanted to reduce the high rates of abortion or munities’ access to bona fide healthcare would promote economic policies that create prosperity – like limited government and economic opportunity.

Furthermore, it’s unclear why a politician would consider an industry that has decimated the black population a boon rather than a menace. Typically, such an industry would be found guilty of racial discrimination because of its “disparate impact” on minorities – the same standard Biden applies to other industries.

The official explanation also falters when it refers to the Reagan-Trump policy as a “global gag rule.” The most pithy es from a Supreme Court case decided 11 days before Joe Biden was born. The justices ruled in 1942’s Wickard v. Filburn, “It is hardly lack of due process for the [g]overnment to regulate that which it subsidizes.”

Foreign NGOs are free to advocate abortion all they wish – on their own dime. Once American citizens are forced to underwrite their political positions, U.S. citizens have the right to object. And polls suggest campaigning against financing foreign abortions pulsory taxation is a winning issue.

Some government officials have attempted to portray the redistribution of wealth from U.S. citizens to foreign abortion advocates as a coup for human rights. Dr. Anthony Fauci previewed the move last week, telling the World Health Organization that mandatory taxpayer funding of foreign prises one part of President Biden’s mitment to protect women’s health and advance gender equality at home and around the world.”

Forcing U.S. taxpayers to advance abortion around the world violates the purpose of government. Governments exist to secure our unalienable rights. First among these is the right to religious freedom, including the ability to live our lives according to our conscience – particularly the right not to entangle our hard-earned money in the intrinsic evil of abortion.

“The government should never force taxpayers to fund abortions, either here or abroad, but should work to protect the inherent dignity of all persons, born and unborn,” says Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life.

The Founding Fathers said the right to “property” included both the right to life and the right to be free of confiscatory taxation. As the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rightsexplained:

For the founders, property refers not only to physical goods and the fruit of one’s labor but also passes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They assumed, following philosopher John Locke, that the protection of property rights benefits all … Without the ability to maintain control over one’s labor, goods, land, home, and other material possessions, one can neither enjoy individual rights nor can society build mon life.

Biden’s taxpayer-funded abortion order is government at its worst: undemocratic, unconstitutional cronyism that pulsory taxation to crush fundamental rights and harm the most vulnerable.

The Founding Fathers understood that losing sight of the purpose of government, and the Source and substance of our rights, assures that we can build mon life at all.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
A Lesson from Michigan: Time to End Crony Unionism
In this week’s Acton Commentary, I take a look at the prospects of “right-to-work” legislation in Michigan, “A Lesson from Michigan: Time to End Crony Unionism.” One of the things that disturbs me the most about what I call “crony unionism” is the hand-in-glove relationship between the labor unions and big government. We have the same kind of special pleading and rent seeking in this system as we do in crony capitalism, but the labor unions enjoy such special protection...
Explaining the New Democratic Logo
“The new Democratic logo is so bad that the intellectual rot in the official announcement went largely unnoticed.” The rest of my piece is here at The American Spectator. ...
Mandating Monolithic Medicine
Among the warnings sounded as the Democratic health care reform bill was being debated was that the federal insurance mandate included in the bill—even though not national health care per se—would essentially give the federal government control of the insurance industry. The reason: If everyone is forced to buy insurance, then the government must deem what sort of insurance qualifies as adequate to meet the mandate. This piece of Obamacare promises to turn every medical procedure into a major political...
Rev. Sirico: Respect others’ rights, but also their values
A new column by Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, was published today in the Detroit News. This column will also be linked in tomorrow’s Acton News & Commentary. Sign up for the free weekly Acton newsletter here. +++++++++ Faith and policy: Respect others’ rights, but also their values FATHER ROBERT SIRICO If such an award were to be given for the Most Contentious Religious Story of 2010, the two main contenders would undoubtedly be...
Journal of Religion and Business Ethics
The latest issue of the newly launched Journal of Religion and Business Ethics is now available (vol. 1, no. 2). Check out the contents at their website. From the journal’s about page: “The Journal of Religion and Business Ethics is a peer-reviewed journal that examines the ethical and religious issues that arise in the modern business setting. While much attention has been given to the philosophical treatment of business ethics, this is the first journal to address the more inclusive...
Envy: A Deadly (Economic) Sin
Victor Claar, Acton University lecturer and professor of economics at Henderson State University, will give a talk tonight in Washington, D.C., hosted by AEI, “Grieving the Good of Others: Envy and Economics.” If you are in the area, you are encouraged to attend and hear Dr. Claar as well as two respondents discuss the topic of envy and its moral and economic consequences. Here’s a description of the event: Critics of capitalism often argue that this economic system is irretrievably...
The Daily Show Takes on a Union
The Daily Show exposes some union hypocrisy (HT). In the words of the union local head, es down to greed”: ...
Radio Free Acton: The Stewardship of Art, Part 2
Last week, we posted part 1 of our podcast on the proper Christian stewardship of art; for those who have been waiting for the conclusion, we’re happy to present part 2. David Michael Phelps continues to lead the discussion between Professors Nathan Jacobs and Calvin Seerveld, who previously debated this topic in the Controversy section of our Journal of Markets & Morality. The first portion of that exchange is available at the link for part 1; the remainder of the...
Work as if It Mattered
The conversations over the last few weeks here on work have raised a couple of questions. In the context of criticisms on the perspectives on work articulated by Lester DeKoster and defended by menter John E. asks, “…what is it that you hope readers will change in their lives, and why?” I want to change people’s view of their work. I want them to see how it has value not simply as a means to some other end, but in...
The Politics of Crony Unionism
Last week’s Acton Commentary and blog post focused on my claims about “crony unionism” and how the intimate relationship between Big Labor and Big Government corrupt both. Here’s another instance of the kinds of gross conflicts of interest produced by this relationship: It’s hard to see this as anything but partisan pandering on the part of the largest public sector union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Meanwhile, the Washington Post asks, “Was politics behind the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved