Statement on Signing the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1990

Today I signed into law H.R. 3566, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, FY 1990.

This Act provides funding for some of the Nation's most important programs -- programs that help the needy, the unemployed, the sick, and the infirm, and programs that provide for the education of American children. In total, the Act provides nearly $44.4 billion in discretionary budget authority, $7.3 billion for the National Institutes of Health, nearly $1.6 billion to combat HIV/AIDS, and $5.4 billion for Compensatory Education for the Disadvantaged.

Furthermore, I wish to commend the Congress for modifying language that would have permitted the use of Federal funding for abortions in cases other than those in which the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term. Adoption of such a provision would have deprived innocent, unborn children of the most basic civil right -- the right to life.

George Bush

The White House,

November 21, 1989.