Under the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Congress has responsibility to appropriate all funds, federal and local, for the District of Columbia. Beginning with fiscal year 1989, Congress has approved the Dornan Amendment to prevent all appropriated funds from being used for elective abortion in the District of Columbia. The policy has remained in place every year except fiscal years 1994 to 1996 and, most recently, 2010 (Public law 111-117), when the restriction on funding applied only to “federal” funds, leaving “local” public funds available to pay for elective abortion. The ban on all funds was restored for fiscal year 2011 (Public Law 112-10).
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