Repro Health Hub

Abortion is still legal in the U.S., but every year thousands of women are denied this right because they don’t have the money to pay for abortion care.  

Women face this difficult situation because in 1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which excludes abortion from government-funded health care programs. Every year since, this harmful amendment has been reauthorized under appropriations bills for the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Women enrolled in Medicaid and similar programs receive coverage for all medically necessary health care services, including prenatal care, labor, and delivery. However, as a result of the Hyde Amendment, a woman enrolled in Medicaid is denied coverage for an abortion, unless she is the victim of rape, incest, or her life is in danger.  

As a result, many low-income women are forced to use money they need for food, rent, and other necessities, to cover the cost of an abortion. Many women cannot raise enough money and must continue the pregnancy and stay trapped in poverty. 

How much “choice” do these women actually have if they aren’t able to access abortion? We urge you to take action to repeal the Hyde Amendment! Below are several steps to take action in your state. 

1.) We urge you to join the Hyde – 30 Years is Enough! Campaign, led by the National Network of Abortion Funds, demanding an end to this injustice!  Sign the petition calling on Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment and restore coverage of abortion for low-income women.  The goal of the Campaign is to collect 20,000 signatures to deliver to Congress by January 22, 2008. With your help we can meet this goal!  

2.) Email, write or call your Congressional members directly asking them to repeal the dangerous Hyde amendment! Find your members online at http://www.congress.org.  

3.) States have the ability to use state-only dollars to cover additional abortion services. Currently, only seventeen states provide this coverage (Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia). If your state is not listed, contact your state legislators and ask them to provide this much needed coverage! 

For more information about low-income women and access to reproductive health care, check out the National Institute’s Low-Income Access Program.

- Myra Batchelder

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Reproductive Rights, Health Care, Low-Income Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.