Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLINE. Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding the time and the chair for her leadership as well. I am honored to be a new member of the Appropriations Committee, but I must oppose this appropriations bill.

I was disappointed by the party-line votes many of my colleagues took during committee markup against amendments that should have garnered bipartisan support.

I am most disheartened that the majority failed to keep decades-long, bipartisan provisions in this bill. Chief among those were the Hyde and the Weldon amendments.

Since Hyde was first included in 1976, it has saved nearly 2.5 million lives. Nearly 60 percent of Americans agree that taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for abortions.

The Weldon amendment ensures that healthcare providers cannot be forced to provide abortion services, a protection that has been in place since 2005.

We should never force our healthcare workers to participate in abortion when they have taken an oath to heal and to do no harm.

While there was much in this bill I would like to support, the inclusion of these provisions is non-negotiable.

I will always stand to preserve the sanctity of life and to protect our healthcare providers from being forced to perform actions they find unconscionable.

The government has a duty to protect the inalienable right to life. Therefore, I cannot support this bill.

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