Townhall
Biden's HHS Sec. Can't Say How Many Facilitated Abortions Performed on Migrant Girls
By Rebecca Downs
On Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee, during which they raised all sorts of red flags about their ability to lead their departments. For instance, Becerra was unable to provide an answer for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) with regards to how many pregnant minors the Office of Refugee Resettlement has facilitated, and how much this has cost taxpayers.
"How many abortions for pregnant migrant girls has the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilitated across state lines over the past year, and what was that cost to taxpayers," Hyde-Smith asked the HHS secretary.
Becerra took a long time to provide a non-answer, during which he also referred to abortion as "emergency services" and discussed having "rights to have healthcare services."
He even framed it as a matter of the administration being "in compliance with the law, for example if emergency services are needed for an individual in our care" and how they would "make sure that we would provide those services" and that they "want to make sure that we assist any individual in being able to execute on their rights to have healthcare services." Hyde-Smith was forced to interrupt to get anywhere, asking more directly "do you know those numbers?"
"I can try to get back to you on any precise numbers," was what Becerra had offer. The Biden administration, especially Becerra, is thus not only pro-abortion, but incompetent as well.
Last November, the HHS' Administration for Children & Family at the Office of Refugee Resettlement issued guidance that when it comes to the task of housing unaccompanied children, pregnant minors or those who have experienced sexual assault should be sent to more pro-abortion states, rather than pro-life ones.
"It’s disgraceful that rather than address the crisis on our southern border, Secretary Becerra is illegally using taxpayer dollars to facilitate abortions on demand for pregnant migrant girls and to circumvent pro-life laws. I will continue to demand answers and work to hold the Biden administration accountable for its actions," Hyde-Smith told Townhall in a statement.
Via a proposed rule from last month, he Biden administration is looking to make such abortions taxpayer funded, and so it's no wonder that Becerra would try to make his remarks about being "in compliance with the law" and "rights to have healthcare services."
As Hyde-Smith's office pointed out in a news release about the hearing, Hyde-Smith and eight other Republican senators submitted a comment letter last week in "fervent opposition." The deadline for comments in December 4, 2023.
"We write today in fervent opposition to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) proposed rule, ‘Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule,’ which blatantly violates prohibitions on the use of federal funds to facilitate abortions and ignores the best interest of the unaccompanied minor. The proposed rule should be immediately withdrawn," the letter mentioned in part. "Instead of adhering to the law, responding to Congressional inquiry, heeding Congress’ warning, and treating unaccompanied minors with the dignity and respect they deserve as young mothers, HHS ORR has decided to codify these flagrant violations of the Hyde Amendment through the proposed rule," the letter continued.
In addition to Hyde-Smith, who also serves as the chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, Sens. Roger Marshall, M.D. (KS) Joni Ernst (IA), Mike Braun (IN), Rick Scott (FL), Josh Hawley (MO) and Ted Cruz (TX) also signed the letter.
President Joe Biden, once a fervent supporter of the Hyde Amendment--in place since 1976 as a way to protect taxpayers from having to fund elective abortions--has been trying to get rid of such protections since his presidential campaign clarified in June 2019 that he was opposed to Hyde.
This is hardly the first time that Becerra has given problematic and confusing answers on abortion. During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in May of 2021, Becerra showed a fundamental lack of understanding about a 2003 federal law banning the partial-birth abortion procedure--a ban he voted against while in Congress--which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in the 2007 decision of Gonzales v. Carhart.