Applying the Head Start program’s nondiscrimination requirements, the budget reconciliation proposal would bar sex discrimination, thereby preventing participation by providers that offer sex-segregated care, the bill’s critics say.
The universal pre-kindergarten program proposed in the budget reconciliation bill includes the same restrictions as those for child care but also would grant funds directly to the providers instead of give certificates to parents. No religious training or activities would be permitted in the pre-kindergarten program, according to critics.
Supporters of the proposed requirements insist all child-care recipients of federal funds must abide by nondiscrimination rules, The New York Times reported.
The Build Back Better Act also eliminates prohibitions on federal funding of abortion such as the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment, which has barred federal funds in Medicaid and other programs from paying for abortions in every year since 1976, has saved the lives of what is estimated to be about 2.5 million unborn children.
Messengers to the SBC’s annual meeting in June approved a resolution that denounced any attempt to rescind the Hyde Amendment and urged the retention of all pro-life “riders,” which must be approved each year in spending bills.
In a Nov. 3 letter, officers of the USCCB told members of Congress the new child-care requirements “attach new and troubling compliance obligations” on recipients of pre-kindergarten and child-care recipients. They described as “completely unacceptable” that the House version “expands taxpayer funding of abortion.”
As a budget reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act will require only a majority, rather than the typical 60 votes, for passage in the Senate.
This article originally appeared here.
