The Trump administration reversed a Biden-era legal opinion from the Department of Justice on Thursday that permitted taxpayer dollars to be used for ancillary services associated with helping someone obtain an abortion, such as transportation costs. <\/p>\n
The policy was particularly used in aiding unaccompanied minor migrants to get abortions, according to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Health and Human Services Department took the view that taxpayer dollars \u2013 even though prohibited by Congress from being used to pay for abortions directly under the Hyde Amendment \u2013 could be used to provide transportation services for patients seeking an abortion. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), charged with interpreting the laws for the president and executive branch agencies, agreed at the time under the Biden administration. <\/p>\n
However, that interpretation and opinion have been upended after Trump’s OLC issued a new one Thursday that bars taxpayer funds from going toward any ‘ancillary services’ that might help someone get an abortion. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The 2022 Biden-era OLC opinion formed the basis for HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to use federal funds to help unaccompanied minors obtain transportation and other services in support of getting an abortion, according to the July 11 opinion released Thursday.<\/p>\n
‘Current regulations require ORR to \u2018ensure that all unaccompanied children in ORR custody\u2026 be provided with\u2026 access to\u2026 family planning services,\u2019 and recognize that \u2018transportation across State lines and associated ancillary services\u2019 may be \u2018necessary to access\u2019 such \u2018family planning services,” the new opinion stated.<\/p>\n
‘Where such transportation services are necessary for an individual to obtain an abortion, the associated costs constitute the kind of indirect expense that the post-1993 Hyde Amendment limits,’ the opinion continues. ‘Under current circumstances, interstate transportation expenses could dwarf the cost of the abortion procedure itself. It would thus be inconsistent with longstanding congressional policy \u2013 as reflected in the Hyde Amendment\u2019s textual bar on \u2018expend[itures] for any abortion\u2019 \u2013 for HHS to fund such expenses merely because they do not go directly to the person or entity performing the abortion.’<\/p>\n
In 1993, Congress changed the statutory language of the Hyde Amendment, which resulted in years of disputes over the measure’s interpretation. <\/p>\n
The new OLC opinion released Thursday argues that the 1993 change expanded the Hyde Amendment to include anything done in service of someone receiving an abortion, not just the abortion itself.<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital did not receive a response from the Justice Department prior to publication of this story.<\/p>\n
The move to strengthen the Hyde Amendment’s protections follows the president’s Executive Order 14182, instructing agencies to ‘end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.’<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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