Lucas, the Hyde Amendment has prohibited taxpayer funds from paying for
abortion care for 39 years -- successfully keeping
some
women from accessing abortion.
Hyde's effects are devastating for low-income women, making it nearly
impossible for them to access safe, affordable abortion.
Reps. Barbara Lee, Jan Schakowsky and Diana DeGette have introduced a bill, the EACH Woman Act, which would undo Hyde and ensure that every woman, no matter how much she makes or how she’s insured, has access to abortion coverage.
Sign the petition from CREDO and Daily Kos to Congress: All women deserve access to safe, legal abortion. Pass the EACH Woman Act now.
Low-income women and women of color disproportionately bear the burden of the Hyde Amendment. Hyde’s passage (and its subsequent reauthorization every year for the last 39 years) banned Medicaid from funding abortions, with only a few exceptions. And state-based anti-choice laws which close clinics and impose mandatory waiting periods make it close to financially impossible for low-income women to use their own resources to access abortions that Medicaid won’t cover.
Since the Hyde Amendment was passed, federal employees and their dependents, military personnel and their dependents, Peace Corps volunteers, and low-income residents of Washington, D.C. have all been denied abortion coverage in their health care.
Undoing this crippling abortion restriction, which has gone largely unchallenged for decades, won’t happen overnight, and certainly not in this Congress. But building momentum can start now, and can make a big difference.
Stand with women. Sign the petition.
Keep fighting,
Monique Teal, Daily Kos