President Joe Biden stayed against the Hyde Amendment despite West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin's demand that it be folded into the Democrats-only reconciliation bill, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
"The president opposes the Hyde Amendment. That has not changed," she told reporters on Monday.
Manchin, an anti-abortion Democrat, said last week the $3.5 trillion packages rolling out reforms such as universal pre-kindergarten and electric vehicle tax incentives was "dead on arrival" if it did not present a ban on Medicaid and other federal programs being used to pay for abortions unless in case of rape or incest. He repeated that it was "a red line" on Monday.
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Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, whose group last week tanked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plan to enact the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal alone of the reconciliation measure, said she was against the Hyde Amendment's return.
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"This is a negotiation, and we have got to continue to move this forward," she said last weekend. "But the Hyde Amendment is something that the majority of the country does not support. One in 4 women have had an abortion and need to have reproductive care in a very, very important time when those protections are being rolled back."
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Biden long advocated the Hyde Amendment but shifted his opinion during the 2020 campaign under influence of liberal Democrats.
"Two years after Roe v. Wade was decided, Sen. Biden said this, and I quote: 'I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body,'" Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said of Biden last year when the two were running for the Democratic nomination.
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But even if the law is halted, abortion services in Texas may not immediately return because doctors are still concerned that they could be sued without a more permanent legal decision.
That worry marks the stability of Senate Bill 8, which has already withstood a wave of challenges. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman of Austin, who was selected by former President Barack Obama, presided over a nearly three-hour hearing but did not say when he would rule.
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The law bans abortions once a heartbeat is identified, which is usually around six weeks before some women know they are pregnant. To execute the law, Texas deputized private citizens to file lawsuits against violators and has entitled them to at least $10,000 in damages if successful.
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