On the heels of a rocky year for the pro-life movement, President Trump made a shocking statement to House Republicans at a policy meeting just one week into 2026. While discussing a new health care bill, he told the gathered legislators,“You have to be a little flexible on Hyde, you know that. You gotta be a little flexible. You gotta work something … we’re all big fans of everything. But you have to have flexibility.” White House officials have since expressed they are ready to “walk back” the statement.

President Trump was referencing the nearly 50-year-old Hyde Amendment, a bipartisan provision renewed annually that ensures tax dollars are not used to fund abortions. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) explained the details:

The Hyde Amendment is language that gets added to spending bills (a “rider”) in order to stop the use of taxpayer funds for abortion or for health insurance coverage that includes abortion – it protects Americans from being complicit in the brutality of abortion through their taxpayer dollars. The first Hyde Amendment applied to Medicaid, but additional amendments have since been offered to disentangle taxpayer funding for abortion from other federal funding streams.

As a rider, the Hyde Amendment is not a permanent law. It must be—and has been—approved by vote with bipartisan support in every federal funding bill since 1976. Amidst legal challenges in its early years, the Hyde Amendment was affirmed as constitutional in 1980 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae.

Pro-life organizations, advocates, and elected officials immediately responded in outrage to President Trump’s comment – and rightfully so.

“I almost fell out of my chair,” one legislator at the meeting anonymously shared.

Sen. James Lankford, who has been centrally involved with Hyde Amendment provisions, stated, “I’m not flexible on the value of every child’s life. There aren’t some children that are disposable, and some children that are valuable. Every child is valuable. And so, that’s not an area that I’m flexible on. That’s a red line I’m not going to cross.”

To Republicans, the Hyde Amendment has always been non-negotiable – and nothing has changed.

“For decades, opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion and support for the Hyde Amendment has been an unshakeable bedrock principle and a minimum standard in the Republican Party. To suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is a dereliction of a decades-long principle. If D.C. abandons the Hyde Amendment, they are sure to lose this November,” SBA wrote in a press release..

SBA shared that the Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved 2,646,474 lives since 1976, as of September, 2025 – “enough people to fill more than 40 NFL stadiums.”

Following Trump’s remark, Vice President of Governmental Affairs and Senior Counsel for Liberty Counsel, Jonathan Alexandre, wrote:

It is clear we are fighting an uphill battle until every life in America is protected. So, when it comes to abortion, we must demand honesty and firmness — not flexibility and compromise — from our national leaders.

There is no room for “flexibility” when it comes to abortion. This very idea is fundamentally broken and incompatible with a culture of life.

Our message must be loud and clear: the Hyde Amendment is a fundamental provision, not a bargaining chip.

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans, including 58% of Independents and 83% of Republicans, oppose taxpayer-funded abortion. The majority of Americans agree that their hard-earned dollars should not go toward enabling women to kill their unborn children at a discount.

There is no room for “flexibility” when it comes to the murder of innocent babies in the womb. The Hyde Amendment is non-negotiable, President Trump.