Nearly half of the U.S. Senate on Friday vowed to block any spending bills that fund abortion. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), founder and chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, sent a letter with 47 other senators to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), promising to oppose legislation that would fund abortion without the inclusion of the Hyde Amendment or similar pro-life protection. The amendment has been added to bills since 1976 to prevent direct funding for abortion providers. “We are deeply opposed to efforts to allow taxpayer funding of abortion on demand and eliminate this more than four-decade-old consensus. Instead, we urge you to allow the Senate to continue its long tradition of bipartisan cooperation in enacting annual appropriations, as well as other health-related spending, with longstanding pro-life protections intact,” the senators told Schumer, who became majority leader last month. “Abortion is not health care; rather, it is a brutal …