As Trump reverses Biden’s Hyde Amendment abuses, Defense Department defunds abortion travel

Last Friday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order rescinding two Biden administration executive actions regarding abortion, specifically related to the Hyde Amendment.

The Hyde Amendment is a pro-life rider created in 1976 that prevents federal dollars from funding most abortions in the U.S. except those carried out for rape, incest, and life of the mother (though induced abortion — the intentional and direct killing of a preborn human being — is not medically necessary.) The Hyde Amendment has been credited with saving millions of lives from abortion.

Though Biden never succeeded in repealing the Hyde Amendment as he wished, he issued various orders in an attempt to expand and fund abortion, essentially circumventing Hyde. One of the Biden administration’s executive orders (EO) rescinded by President Trump had pressured legislators to expand access to abortion, while the other EO redefined abortion (the intentional killing of humans) as health care.

According to the White House, Trump’s order “recognizes that, for nearly five decades, Congress enacted the Hyde Amendment and a series of additional laws to protect taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortion. Contrary to this longstanding commonsense policy, the previous administration embedded federal funding of elective abortion in a wide variety of government programs.”

Trump’s executive order, “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” states, “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.”

To protect the Hyde Amendment, Trump’s order will rescind Biden’s Executive Order 14076, “Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care,” which pressed for the government to “protect and expand access to abortion.” However, federal statutes under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) mentioned in Biden’s order to ensure emergency health care for pregnant women will remain intact, as will the protection of personal medical information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Trump’s order also rescinds Biden’s Executive Order 14079, “Securing Access to Reproductive and Other Healthcare Services,” which classified induced abortion as “health care” to enable taxpayer funding of the deadly procedures, including allowing Medicaid funds to pay for travel costs related to induced abortions. Biden signed the order in August 2022, about two months after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

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According to Real Clear Politics, following the fall of Roe, Biden “pledged that, in the interim, his administration would use ‘all of its appropriate lawful powers’ to preserve access to abortion in states where it remains legal.” It added that under the Biden administration, “a host of new policies” went into place. The outlet reported that, under Biden:

… The Defense Department implemented a policy to reimburse transportation costs for service members and their dependents traveling across state lines for abortion. A Biden spokesman told RCP the policy was critical to military readiness. The Department of Veterans Affairs introduced a rule allowing VA hospitals to provide access to abortion counseling and, in some cases, to perform abortions for service members and their beneficiaries. And the Health and Human Services Department, amidst a historic surge at the border, issued a policy requiring that pregnant illegal immigrants who were minors and unaccompanied by a parent be given transportation for an abortion.

The Trump administration cited each of those Biden policies as examples of “federal overreach,” identified them for rescission, and in a readout of the order, stated that going forward, “taxpayer dollars will no longer force violations of faith and conscience or impede the ability of states to determine life policies through a vote of the people.”

The Trump administration alleges that Biden violated the Hyde Amendment by embedding federal funding of abortion within government programs. To rectify that, the new Trump executive order rescinds two Biden executive actions, one that imposed a whole-of-government effort to expand access to abortion and another that categorized abortion as “healthcare.”

A fact sheet issued by the White House noted:

For the first time in nearly fifty years, President Trump returned the issue of life to a vote of the people, from within the States.

• • Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the power to regulate issues of life and safety to the people. Three of the justices deciding the case were appointed by President Trump.

  • Federal overreach and taxpayer dollars will no longer force violations of faith and conscience or impede the ability of states to determine life policies through a vote of the people.

    • For example, under President Biden, the Department of Defense reimbursed abortion-related travel expenses, the Department of Veterans Affairs allowed hospitals to provide abortions, and the Department of Health and Human Services paid for abortions for illegal immigrants.

On Wednesday, the Defense Department announced in a memo that it had officially struck the Biden-era abortion-related travel allowances, “[i]n accordance with Executive Order, Enforcing the Hyde Amendment, January 24, 2025….”

According to The Hill, 18 Democratic lawmakers decried the move, stating that the decision to no longer force taxpayers to fund service members’ travel to end the lives of their preborn children “runs contrary to a core goal of the Department of Defense — to ensure the health and well-being of all our service members so that our force remains ready at all times to protect Americans and keep this nation safe.”

Meanwhile, pro-life legislators in both the House and the Senate have introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2025, in an attempt to make the Hyde Amendment permanent.

Editor’s Note, 1/30/25: This post has been updated since original publication.