Last summer President Barack Obama told Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News that there is a “tradition” in Washington “of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care.” This benchmark moment in the history of abortion rights in the United States was more than three decades in the making.
The ostensibly pro-choice president was referring to the principles of the Hyde Amendment passed three years after Roe vs. Wade placed the protection of the Constitution behind a woman’s right to choose. Named for the conservative Catholic congressman, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), it proscribed federal funds from being used to provide abortions. The main effect was to remove abortion from the list of medical services that could be paid for through the federal Medicaid program. Many reproductive rights supporters saw it as an affront to poor women who would, in effect, be denied access to abortion care.
But a creeping Washington consensus emerged during the current debate on health care reform that took many by surprise: The Hyde Amendment is now seen as a moderate, “abortion-neutral” position that neither advances nor restricts abortion. The gradual adoption of the principles of the most significant anti-abortion legislation in history as a moderate compromise constitutes a stunning shift in American political and religious life, and raises fundamental questions about whether society views abortion care as part of health care and about its commitment to the right to choose an abortion, as it points to a significant double standard for poor women.
Public Options?
One could call Hyde the first volley in the strategy of “abortion reduction” that has guided the broad mainstream of the anti-abortion movement at least since the mid-1990s.
Prior to Hyde, about a third of all abortions performed in the United States were for poor women on Medicaid. “No other medical procedure was singled out for exclusion,” the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) reported in 2005. “Today, 33 states have followed suit, prohibiting state Medicaid funding [for abortion] as well.” All but one of these states (South Dakota) follows the Hyde exceptions of rape, incest, or life endangerment. The report details the disproportionate burdens placed on disadvantaged women, and observes that “women of color disproportionately depend on such coverage, making abortion funding a matter of racial justice as well as economic justice and women’s rights.”
But the federal restrictions did not stop there. Over the years, Congress has also legislated against access to abortion services for women in the military and Peace Corps, disabled women, residents of the District of Columbia, federal prisoners, and women covered by the Indian Health Service. Indeed, it could be argued that except for the legal right to an abortion, federal policies constitute the greatest abortion reduction program of all.
“Prior to 1996,” states the NNAF report, “legal immigrants and US citizens were equally eligible for Medicaid.” But the 1996 welfare reform law signed by President Clinton required a five-year waiting period before most new legal immigrants could even apply. Less than half of the states fill in the five-year gap with their own funds, and nine states permanently deny Medicaid coverage to non-citizen residents.
Defenders of abortion rights might legitimately worry that “conscience clauses” could also be said to have a venerable history. The original conscience clause legislation passed in 1973 in the wake of Roe states, according to the Congressional Research Service, that public officials may not require individuals or entities who receive certain public funds to perform abortion or sterilization procedures, or to make facilities or personnel available for the performance of such procedures, if such performance “would be contrary to [the individual or entity’s] religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
This provision has allowed even major medical facilities (such as Roman Catholic hospitals) to refuse to deal with abortions without jeopardizing their ability to receive public grants and contracts or affect their tax-exempt status. A new rule promulgated late in the Bush administration expanded and particularized the exemptions, stating that health workers may even refuse to provide information or advice regarding abortion. The Obama administration has rescinded the Bush rule, but says it plans to leave some kind “reasonable” exemptions in place.
Historic pro-choice religious communities see Hyde differently than the current Inside the Beltway consensus. For example, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Hyde, the Washington, DC-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, (a group of 40 religious organizations, including major protestant denominations and most of the major organizations of Judaism) issued a “call to conscience to end this discriminatory and punitive measure”:
Tags: abortion, abortion neutrality, abortion reduction, hyde amendment, pro choice, pro-choice
Until the men in Washington have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy-- by that I mean become pregnant due to incest, rape, contraceptive failure, which we all know is impossible-- they will never understand the needs of women completely.
Even if their daughters, wives, nieces &tc have to choose to end a pregnancy there becomes an ingrained "It's ok for us, sometimes because we had to"... as opposed to the thought that it might be possible for all women, everywhere, every time to make decisions for themselves.
I have lobbied (yes, literally telephoned and written) those in DC who are the most anti-choice and begged them to raise these "unwanted children" they care to champion. I have explained many times that these men must be able to do this, and I am certain they can handle it without any help from the government-- they're important, after all-- and therefore they can raise all these children, "saving them" from abortions.
They never do call back, though. And that is the inherent unfairness of it all. Rather than actually caring about anyone, or anything, these men wish to continue to keep women from realising her potential... far better to punish her for something out of her control so she's kept in line, under the thumb...
*shrugging* Can't blame a girl for trying... Some one has to see it, understand our position...
Incest and rape are exceptions under Hyde and Stupak, right? So what are you complaining about, PR? Contraceptive failure? No contraceptive claims to be 100% effective; it is common knowledge that they all fail at least some of the time. How can this kind of pregnancy be "outside someone's control"? I agree that it is unfair for the woman to bear 100% of the consequences, when there is a man who is equally involved in the decision. But we shouldn't pretend that pregnancy is something that attacks unsuspecting couples who are just minding their own business, nor should we pretend that simply sweeping a potential human life under the rug is a valid way to deal with it.
Yes, get rid of the double standard: i) make all abortion illegal except in cases of rape and incest, ii) impose equal (or harsher) criminal penalties on fathers of aborted children as on mothers, and iii) divert government funds to provide tangible support for mothers in crisis and their "unwanted children". We can find a standard that dignifies both the woman and the child, and that holds accountable both the father and the mother... but I'm pessimistic that we'll see it appearing in law any time soon.
Well said.
By banning abortion the government has stepped into the realm of trying to legislate morality. Until a pregnancy, which may or may not produce a live birth, is deemed legally equal to a born person, there seems no excuse to deny women abortion rights in the first and second trimester, and third trimester as a lifesaving measure.
Forget pro-choice. The government needs more unwanted babies. It creates jobs for teachers, police, prison builders, prison guards, mental health techs, etc. Too bad that most will be in that 75% of youth who are unqualified for military service.
Suggest that more people read the books of Dr. Jack Westman, the child psychiatrist, and te free ebook series "In Search of Utopia" (http://andgulliverreturns.info)
The government is obviously deeply committed to having more unwanted children and more poor women collecting food stamps and living on welfare.
Conservatives in particular want poor women having lots of kids, at least until the safety nets are all repealed.
After all, if poor women are economically forced to continue to term, conservatives can condemn them for considering an abortion, then, after birth, condemn them for, essentially, refusing to have an abortion. Win win, votes and campaign contributions all around.
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