SisterLove, Inc Statements: 45 Years Of Hyde Amendment

WATCH: ABORTION ACCESS IN GEORGIA AFTER TEXAS ABORTION BAN WEBINAR

September 25th marked 45 years since the Hyde Amendment came into fruition.

The Hyde Amendment is a provision to congressional budgets that has blocked the use of federal funds from being used to pay for abortion services since 1976. This provision, which came into effect a mere three years after Roe became the law of the land, meant that lower-income people who relied on Medicaid or Medicare or other federal health insurance programs were prevented from using their federal health insurance coverage to pay for an abortion procedure. In 1994, three narrow exceptions to Hyde came about:

1. When continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life of the pregnant birthing person;

2. When the pregnancy is the result of rape; or

3. When the pregnancy is the result of incest.

In actuality, this means that, when a patient’s life could be endangered but not to the level required for the exception, the pregnant person would be forced to carry the pregnancy to term.

In instances were all family planning services are funded by federal health insurance, all with the exception of abortion, that interferes with the birthing person’s fundamental human rights. It also interferes with their ability to make decisions regarding their own bodies, and completely disregards the opinions of the healthcare provider and the family of the pregnant person.

It is important to call the Hyde Amendment what it is-- a racist, classist provision that intended to prevent lower-income marginalized people from acquiring the necessary health care coverage that they need. Abortion is essential health care. Currently, one in four women of reproductive age (18-49) will have an abortion by the time that they are 45. That statistic excludes people with uteruses who do not identify as women, so the number is higher. The abortion rate for Black women is five times larger than the rate for White women. For Latine women, the rate of abortion is twice the rate for White women. Both Black and Latine birthing people have higher unintended pregnancy rates than their white counterparts. And we know, due to structural racism and inequality, that Black and Brown people are more likely to be lower-income. That means that Black and Brown communities are very negatively impacted by provisions like Hyde.

The Hyde Amendment was left out of the congressional budget for this year. While this was a great step in the right direction, a new president could come into office in 2024 and reverse it, leading to the Hyde Amendment being included in Congressional budgets again.

That is why Congress should consider passing the EACH Act. EACH stands for Equal Access to Abortion Care in Health Insurance. It would require federal insurance coverage plans to cover abortion services. This would mean that those individuals who are enrolled in Medicaid, Medicare, or CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) would be able to access abortion services and they would be covered by their insurance. This would be huge for people enrolled in government-sponsored health insurance programs or Indigenous people who receive their health care through the IHS (Indian Health Service), just to name a few.

To learn more about the EACH act, click here.

If you would like to let your legislators know where you stand on the EACH act, click here to track

down your representative(s) and here for your senator(s).

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