Washington D.C., Jul 7, 2022 / 13:30 pm
Florida Senator Marco Rubio urged Tuesday that the Biden administration clarify that it will not pay for federal employees’ sick leave while traveling for an abortion.
“The federal government has no business promoting the killing of unborn children,” he wrote in a July 5 letter addressed to Kiran Ahuja, the director of Office of Personnel Management (OPM). “I demand that the agency clarify that the federal government will not provide sick leave for travel related to abortion services.”
In the letter, the Republican senator expressed his concern that providing sick leave for employees obtaining abortions could violate the Hyde Amendment. The legislative provision bars federal funding of abortion, with exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
The Biden administration, he claimed, is “even willing to violate longstanding federal law prohibiting the use of taxpayer monies to fund abortions or abortion services.”