WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., today joined 32 colleagues in opposition to the Biden administration’s efforts to direct tax dollars to abortion providers.

The lawmakers signed a comprehensive public comment letter that urges Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to withdraw a Proposed Rule on the Title X family planning program. If finalized, the Proposed Rule would direct tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to enrich Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.

“The Proposed Rule would allow Title X funds to support programs where abortion is a method of family planning, contrary to law, and, impose onerous and illegal mandates for Title X projects to counsel and refer for abortion. As Members of Congress, we have a unique Constitutional interest and oversight role in ensuring regulations governing the Title X program comport with the law and Congressional intent,” the Senators wrote.

“Abortion is not family planning; it is family destruction… The Proposed Rule defies the law and would siphon tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in Title X funding towards Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, to the detriment of American taxpayers, the consciences of health care providers, and the lives of unborn children,” they said.

Led by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the letter was issued as part of the public comment period on the Biden administration’s Proposed Rule on Title X, which would overturn the 2019 Protect Life Rule that restricted using tax dollars for abortion providers.

The Susan B. Anthony List, Family Research Council, National Right to Life, March for Life, Concerned Women for America, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Heritage Action, Americans United for Life, and the HHS Accountability Project scholars at the Ethics and Public Policy Center support the Senators’ letter.

Wicker and Hyde-Smith are original cosponsors of the Protect Funding for Women’s Health Care Act (S.1144), legislation to prevent any taxpayer dollars from going to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s single largest provider of abortions, and direct those resources to other eligible women’s health services.