For the first time in history, Congress enacted a one-year moratorium on Medicaid reimbursements for large abortion providers, effectively stopping the majority of federal funds indirectly fueling U.S. abortions. This momentary, if partial, reprieve for the collective moral conscience of American taxpayers is approaching a critical deadline: July 4, 2026. If defunding efforts are not included in a new reconciliation package, Americans will once again be forced to fund abortion, inflicting a moral wound on our national conscience.
Moral injury inflicted by forced participation in abortion — upon conscientiously objecting women and physicians coerced into those procedures — has been well documented. Average citizens may not bear the burden of guilt themselves, as both law and judicial precedent obligate us to pay taxes in the amount determined by the federal government. However, intentional participation by government actors in morally corrupt use of our tax dollars casts a shadow over our nation’s conscience and bleeds into our individual lives.
Private citizens have attempted to address this moral injury through litigation. In United States v. Bowman, Michael Bowman willfully failed to file his annual tax return, citing his deeply held religious values that stood in conflict with federal funding of abortion providers. Bowman said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protected his refusal to participate in the federal tax program. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District ruled otherwise, pointing to United States v. Lee, which established the often-cited precedent that, even though sincerely held beliefs may be burdened by federal allocation of tax dollars, conscientious objection is outweighed by the public interest of upholding a uniform tax code.
Whereas the judicial system was unable to provide a remedy to this still-present moral injury, Congress, by means of defunding abortion facilities via reconciliation, can eliminate the source of injury.
Congressional powers enumerated by the taxing and spending clause grant authority to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” Particularly, the clause’s uniformity requirement supports the ruling in cases like Bowman, but Congress has the power to legislate with respect to what constitutes general welfare. So long as Congress has a uniform rule, it cannot be forced to spend federal tax dollars on abortion.
For decades, abortion has rightfully been broadly excluded from health and welfare appropriations, rooted in conscientious objection. The Hyde Amendment, the federal appropriations rider credited for protecting the conscience of American taxpayers, largely prevents federal dollars from direct subsidization of abortion. However, several exceptions to indirect funding pathways exist, including fungible Medicaid reimbursements, and taxpayers are still left to foot the bill.
Where American taxpayers found victory in defunding under the One Big Beautiful Bill, the U.S. Senate recently passed a second reconciliation bill void of an extension on defunding in a late-night vote, and the House is poised to do the same. With some exceptions, lawmakers on Capitol Hill seem to have decided that allowing streams of federal tax dollars to flow, even temporarily, is worth a relapse in moral injury. The majority of Americans would disagree, as recent polling shows that 54 percent of Americans do not want their tax dollars to subsidize abortion — a decades-long trend.
Decisions like these by elected officials cause trust in our republic to fail and a culture of death to prosper. Understandably, politics requires compromise, but utilitarianism cannot be embraced, especially when it comes to the politics of morality — when life and death are held in the balance of those elevated at the ballot box. When consciences are repeatedly betrayed in the public square, the capacity to discern and act on the truth is diminished.
Elected officials are stewards of the American conscience and are morally obligated by duty of office to courageously stake moral claims in their policymaking. Members of Congress must ensure a second reconciliation package is not passed without extending the federal defunding of abortion facilities.
This nihilistic abandonment of Congress’s previous fiscal and moral victory just one year earlier leaves us asking why leadership has suddenly disappeared. Abandoning moral causes during election-year legislation efforts is unfortunately commonplace for Republican leadership.
By our citizenship, we are obligated to render taxes owed. Yet we are not so far bound as to stay silent to the moral misstep of federal abortion funding. The collective conscience of our nation is formed through accountability of our elected officials, who, only by means of representation, reflect the consciences of individuals. Only by blatant moral inaction does the complicity and accompanying guilt for abortion funding become our own.
