Congressional Republicans are reportedly trying to insert anti-abortion language into government funding legislation as the shutdown continues, with the GOP and President Donald Trump digging in against a clean extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits as insurance premiums surge.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sounded the alarm on Saturday about what he characterized as the latest Republican sneak attack on reproductive rights.

“Republicans said they might vote to lower Americans’ healthcare costs, but only if we agree to include a backdoor national abortion ban,” Wyden said in remarks on the Senate floor.

The senator was referring to a reported GOP demand that any extension of ACA subsidies must include language that bars the tax credits from being used to purchase plans that cover abortion care.

But as the health policy organization KFF has noted, the ACA already has “specific language that applies Hyde Amendment restrictions to the use of premium tax credits, limiting them to using federal funds to pay for abortions only in cases that endanger the life of the woman or that are a result of rape or incest.”

“The ACA also explicitly allows states to bar all plans participating in the state marketplace from covering abortions, which 25 states have done since the ACA was signed into law in 2010,” according to KFF.

Wyden said Saturday—which marked day 39 of the shutdown—that “Republicans are spinning a tale that the government is funding abortion.”

“It’s not,” Wyden continued. “What Republicans are talking about putting on the table amounts to nothing short of a backdoor national abortion ban. Under this plan, Republicans could weaponize federal funding for any organization that does anything related to women’s reproductive healthcare. They could also weaponize the tax code by revoking non-profit status for these organizations.”

“The possibilities are endless, but the results are the same: a complete and total restriction on abortion, courtesy of Republicans,” the senator added. “Trump said he’d leave abortion care up to the states. Well, this latest scheme makes it crystal clear: A de facto nationwide abortion ban has been his plan all along.”

The GOP effort to attach anti-abortion provisions to government funding legislation adds yet another hurdle in negotiations to end the shutdown, which the Trump administration has used to throttle federal nutrition assistance and accelerate its purge of the federal workforce.

Trump is also pushing a proposal that would differently distribute federal funds that would have otherwise gone toward the enhanced ACA tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

“It sounds like it could be a plan for health accounts that could be used for insurance that doesn’t cover preexisting conditions, which could create a death spiral in ACA plans that do,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF

Although in vitro fertilization (IVF) enables many couples to overcome fertility problems and have kids, the process is vehemently opposed by some evangelical Christian fundamentalists. One of them is House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who, according to The Guardian's Mike Sherman and MS NOW reporters Julianne McShane and Mychael Schnell, stripped an IVF provision from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) earlier this year.

The NDAA, established by Congress in 1961, is a series of federal laws that specifies budget expenditures for the U.S. Department of Defense. The NDAA laid out earlier this year included a provision funding IVF treatment for active-duty members of the military, but Johnson, Sherman reports, had it removed.

In an article published on December 8, Sherman explains, "Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House and a diehard anti-abortion Republican, worked behind the scenes to strip the provision from the new version of the NDAA, MS NOW reported last week. Although IVF is extremely popular with the American public, abortion foes often oppose it on the grounds that it creates unused or discarded embryos, which they see as people."

Sherman notes that in recent years, Republicans have "sought to use the NDAA to entrench their socially conservative policies within the military" — even though Donald Trump campaigned on IVF in 2024.

"Congress may vote on the latest version of the NDAA as early as this week," Sherman notes. "While on the campaign trail, Trump claimed that he was 'the father of IVF' and said that he wanted to make IVF free. Since retaking the White House, however, he has fallen far short of that promise."

Read Mike Sherman's full article for The Guardian at this link.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) is warning the White House that "most House Republicans don’t have an appetite for extending enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies," jeopardizing President Donald Trump's healthcare push.

Johnson's warning, the WSJ reports, shows "how hard it will be politically to stave off sharp increases in healthcare costs next year for many Americans."

"The message from Johnson, in a phone call with administration officials, came as President Trump’s advisers were drafting a healthcare plan that extended the subsidies for two years," they report.

Johnson's warning, they write, "underscores the hurdles facing any deal in coming weeks."

The enhanced ACA subsidies — the Democrats' major point of contention during the government shutdown — expire at the end of the year, affecting more than 20 million people who benefit from the tax credits.

"Many Republicans objected to the taxpayer-funded subsidies continuing to go toward funding healthcare plans that cover abortions, a red line for many GOP lawmakers, said people familiar with the objections," the WSJ explains.

The "emerging White House plan," they write, "would extend the subsidies temporarily, while imposing income caps for ACA enrollees to qualify, as well as measures to crack down on healthcare fraud, according to people familiar with the matter."

While the White House proposal is not yet finalized, Johnson has already said that enhanced ACA subsidies would be a tough sell in the House.

“What we have said is, if there was going to be an extension of that, it would need massive reforms,” including income caps and other changes, he said on Fox News earlier this month.

Extending the subsidies for two years would win praise from centrist Democrats like Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who said, “If the reports are true and the president is considering coming to the table in good faith, I believe we can find a path forward that can earn broad bipartisan support in Congress."

For now, the WSJ reports, Johnson is treading in difficult waters.

"Johnson must balance the cries from Republicans in competitive districts who are demanding an extension of the subsidies against many members’ deeply held opposition to the subsidies paid under the ACA," they write.

Republican Matt Van Epps narrowly prevailed Tuesday in a special election for a Tennessee district that President Donald Trump carried by 22 points last year, a result that has the GOP increasingly worried about the party’s prospects in next year’s midterms as voters take out their growing anger over high living costs.

Van Epps defeated Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn in the US House race by roughly nine points, a strikingly narrow margin for a district that Republican Mark Green—who resigned from Congress over the summer—won by 21 points last year.

Behn placed affordability, which Trump has called a Democratic “scam,” at the center of her bid to represent Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, replicating the playbooks of recently successful Democratic campaigns across the country.

“I don’t care what political party you belong to, but if you are upset about the cost of living and the chaos of Washington, then I’m your candidate, and I welcome you with open arms,” Behn said during the race, which drew national attention and millions of dollars in spending.

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF), which backed Behn—a supporter of abortion rights—said late Tuesday that “the lesson from Aftyn’s campaign is clear: Voters are looking for leaders who will put healthcare affordability over billionaire special interests.”

“Every day that President Trump and his backers are in power, people suffer,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, PPAF’s president and CEO. “They’re seeing healthcare costs rise, abortion bans in 20 states, and health center closures leading to longer wait times and distances to get care—all worsening the healthcare crisis the Trump administration created.”

Notably, while Van Epps embraced Trump, much of the Republican messaging in the race focused on attacking Behn as a “radical” rather than championing the president’s economic agenda, which voters across the country blame for driving up costs. Behn, who received over 115% of the 2022 Democrat nominee’s vote total, said that Republicans were attacking her because “they don’t have a plan to make healthcare more affordable.”

The GOP scramble to defend a deep-red seat was seen by both Republicans and Democrats as a possible signal of what’s to come in next year’s midterms. One House Republican, speaking anonymously, told Politico that “tonight is a sign that 2026 is going to be a bitch of an election cycle.”

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement that “what happened tonight in Tennessee makes it clear: Democrats are on offense and Republicans are on the ropes.”

“Aftyn Behn’s overperformance in this Trump +22 district is historic and a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms. Aftyn centered her campaign on lowering grocery, housing, and healthcare costs for Tennessee families,” said Martin. “The fact that Republicans spent millions to protect this Trump +22 district and still lost so much ground should have the GOP shaking in their boots.”

Twenty five per cent of US voters think that the Republican party has a better plan for women’s rights than the Democrats, according to new polling.