What The Repeal of The Hyde Amendment Would Mean For American Women

Abortion is the only medical procedure that has ever been banned from Medicaid coverage. (All photos courtesy NARAL)

Though abortion became legal with the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade in 1973, in 1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, banning Medicaid coverage of abortion.

Now, almost 40 years later, Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) are working to change that with the introduction of the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Woman Act.

Medicaid is a program jointly run by the federal government and the states to provide free or low-cost health insurance for families and individuals of low income and limited resources; thus, the Hyde Amendment essentially bans the poorest Americans from being able to access abortion care. The Hyde Amendment also blocks abortion access for federal employees, U.S. servicewoman, Peace Corps volunteers, low-income women in Washington, D.C. and those insured through the Indian Health Service, among others.

Related: The Horrifying Reality of Abortion Before It Was Legal in America

To be clear, abortion is the only medical procedure that has ever been banned from Medicaid coverage.

But last night, more than 170,000 signatures were delivered to Congress by NARAL Pro-Choice America, CREDO Action, Daily Kos, National Organization for Women, Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, The Nation, Left Action, Lady Parts Justice, People for the American Way, Crooks & Liars, Silver Linings Action and Deluge, calling on lawmakers to repeal the Hyde Amendment restrictions currently preventing millions of women from accessing all of their reproductive health care options.

In a statement, Lizz Winstead, the Co-Founder of Lady Parts Justice and the Co-Creator of The Daily Show, told Yahoo Health, “The range of healthcare a person needs should never be denied because of income. The Hyde amendment denies abortion access to poor women, burdening and further stigmatizing those who are already struggling.”

“Every day, the rights of women are under attack and it’s past time to push back,” said Rep. Barbara Lee in a statement yesterday. “Politicians should not be interfering with a women’s personal healthcare decisions because of how much she earns, where she lives or how she’s insured. The EACH Woman Act would finally end this practice.”

The EACH Woman Act would instill the federal government as the standard-bearer for women’s healthcare, ensuring that every woman who receives either care or insurance through the federal government has access to and coverage of abortion services. Should it be made law, the EACH Woman Act would restore abortion coverage to those enrolled in a government health insurance plan such as Medicaid and Medicare, including those who live in the District of Columbia; those enrolled in a government-managed health insurance program (such as TRICARE, the insurance program for active military personnel and their families) due to an employment relationship; and those who receive healthcare from a government provider or program (including Indian Health Services, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Veterans Administration, or VA).

Furthermore, the bill would prohibit political interference with decisions by private health insurance companies to offer coverage for abortion care. Federal, state, and local legislators will not be able to interfere with the private insurance marketing, including the insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA, known colloquially as Obamacare), to prevent insurance companies from providing abortion coverage.

Many anti-choice legislators began implementing laws to restrict access to abortion care through insurance plans bought through the new state-run health care exchanges almost as soon as President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law in 2010. To date, 10 states have laws in effect restricting insurance coverage of abortion in all private insurance plans written in the state, including those that are offered through the health insurance exchanged that were established under the federal health care reform law. Of those, 8 states limit coverage to life endangerment and one state limits coverage to life, rape, incest, fetal impairment and “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

Related: ‘I Set Her Free’ — What One Woman Wants Lawmakers to Know About Her Late-Term Abortion

25 States restrict abortion coverage in plans offered through the state-run exchanges, 21 states restrict abortion coverage in insurance plans for public employees, and 18 states have more than one of the above restrictions in place.

Approximately 1 in 6 women between the ages of 16-44 are enrolled in Medicaid, more than a million women are federal employees, 1.1 million women of reproductive age are covered by TRICARE, and 1 million women receive healthcare through the Indian Health Services. All of these women are currently banned from accessing abortion care.

“The right to abortion is meaningless if people can’t afford it,” Sarah Sophie Flicker, the Creative Director of The Citizens Band and a member of the Lady Parts Justice leadership team, tells Yahoo Health. The average abortion costs somewhere between $650-$1000, not including the costs of transportation, time off from work, and childcare, Flicker notes.

“The Hyde Amendment makes this right inaccessible to poor women,” Flicker continues. “Women who are overwhelmingly of color and mothers already. 6 out of 10 women who have abortions are already mothers. Mothers who will have to cut back on food, diapers, and basic necessities for their families. Mothers who, many times, carry out unwanted pregnancies & sink further into debt.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the additional public cost of prenatal care, delivery services, and welfare totals four to five times the amount saved by not paying for Medicaid abortions. And the 2012 Turnaway Study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley found that women denied abortion were more likely to be receiving public assistance within a year of having been denied an abortion. While only 45 percent of the almost 1000 women studied were on public assistance when they sought, and were denied, an abortion, 76 percent were on public assistance the following year.

Related: Women Face Harder Path to Abortion as States Extend Waiting Period

The Center for American Progress has found that poor women already face significant disparities when it comes to reproductive health; compared with higher-income women, poor women are five times more likely to experience unintended pregnancy and six times as likely to give birth as a result of an unplanned pregnancy. Furthermore, they note, women of color are disproportionately effecting by the Hyde Amendments restrictions, with 40.9 percent of African American female and 36.3 percent of Latinas enrolled in government-based insurance and with Black women having the highest unintended pregnancy rate of any racial or ethnic group and more than double that of non-Hispanic white women and Latinas having a 78 percent higher unintended pregnancy rate than non-Hispanic white women.

For Flicker, the fight for reproductive rights, and to repeal the Hyde Amendment is all the more personal because she is a mother herself. She says, “As mothers, we know both the beauty and joy of raising children’s, we also know the financial cost, the time pressures, the hardships and the support necessary to raise happy, healthy kids. Hyde is a slap in the face to women and I support the EACH Woman Act because each woman, every woman, deserves the right to have a child, or not have a child, when she see’s fit.”#

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