Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) are demanding that President Donald Trump’s administration stop allowing the nation’s largest employer-sponsored health benefits program to use tax dollars to cover the costs of abortions for Members of Congress and congressional staffers.

“Since 1984, the Smith Amendment to the Financial Services Appropriations bill has prohibited the use of appropriated funds ‘to pay for an abortion, or the administrative expenses in connection with any health plan under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which provides any benefits or coverage for abortions,’ except in cases ‘where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term, or the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest,” Lee, Smith, and 22 other GOP Senate and House colleagues said in a December 5, 2025, letter to U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor.

The FEHBP covers an estimated eight million present and retired federal workers and dependents, as well as many of the 12,000+ aides working on Capitol Hill and outside of the nation’s capital for individual senators, representatives, and congressional committees, as well as 8,000 employees of congressional agencies like the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Library of Congress (LOC).

The OPM, with a total budget in 2025 of $1.35 billion, is the central personnel agency for the 2.8 million federal workers, including 2.2 million career civil servants, and the agency administers multiple retirement programs in addition to the FEHBP. Estimates for how many abortions were involved in the FEHBP coverage process could not be obtained.

“This longstanding provision of law restricts OPM from administering government contributions in connection with any health plan for federal employees that covers elective abortion,” the signers continued. Besides Lee and Smith, the signers included Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Jim Banks of Indiana, Steve Daines of Montana, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.

Members of the House Representatives included Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, Eric Burlison of Missouri, Sherry Biggs of South Carolina, Mary Miller of Illinois, Michael Guest of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Michael Cloud of Texas, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Keith Self of Texas, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Daniel Webster of Florida, Ben Cline of Virginia, Barry Moore of Alabama, Mark Messmer of Indiana, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, and Russ Fulcher of Idaho.

The signers accused OPM officials of using an accounting dodge to create the appearance of legality in the federal personnel agency’s approach to compliance with the law.

“In its regulatory preamble (78 FR 60654, October 2, 2013) and on its Frequently Asked Questions webpage, OPM claims that these abortion subsidies are allowed by attributing the segregated costs of the elective abortion coverage and associated administrative expenses to the individual’s contribution, rather than the taxpayers’ contribution,” the signers told Kupor.

“OPM’s use of this accounting gimmick to grant abortion subsidies to Congress is not provided for under Section 1303 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and is blatantly illegal under the Smith Amendment’s strict requirement for a complete exclusion of elective abortion coverage for federal employees. By flouting the Smith Amendment, such subsidies also violate the Anti-deficiency Act, which prohibits the authorization of expenditures or obligations without an appropriation by law,” the signers continued.

The Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA) is a federal law passed in 1884 that provides severe administrative and penal punishments for federal employees who obligate federal funds for purposes and amounts not authorized by an act of Congress. Prosecutions under the ADA are rare, as federal prosecutors typically prefer to charge crimes related to what would otherwise be an ADA crime, such as theft of government property.

“Taxpayers, who contribute 72 to 75 percent of these health benefit premiums, do not want their hard-earned tax dollars to pay for abortions. The Smith Amendment does not allow Members of Congress and Congressional staff to operate under a different set of rules than other federal employees when it comes to taxpayer funding of abortion. For 2026, there are only two health plans offered through DC Health Link that do not cover abortion, CareFirst’s BluePreferred PPO Gold and United Healthcare’s Choice Plus Gold,” the signers wrote.

A senior OPM official who asked not to be identified told The Washington Stand that the agency is “looking into this and doing everything we can do to stop this from happening.”