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The Hyde Amendment has been considered an essential component of the U.S. budget for nearly 50 years, first passing in 1976, just three years after the now-defunct amendment. Roe v. Wade The amendment prohibits federal programs from covering the costs of most abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or life-threatening pregnancies. While the original amendment only applied to Medicaid, the Hyde restrictions have now been expanded to other programs, including Medicare, the Federal Employees Health Insurance Program, and the Indian Health Service. To many supporters, the amendment serves as a crude check on abortion access while preventing taxpayer funding of abortions.
Hyde has endured repeated lawsuits and congressional challenges. For opponents of the amendment, even President Joe Biden’s attempt to repeal it was seen as progress, even if it failed. A Harris administration may now give them the first chance in decades not just to attack the amendment, but to repeal it.
“Harris is already setting the stage,” Nobes Flint, president of the national abortion rights group All Above All, told me. egg If the Hyde Act were repealed, new rules would have to be written or old regulations repealed to restore abortion protections, but Kamala Harris, by talking about “what we want for the future, not the past,” is signaling that she intends to do just that, Flynt said. In effect, repealing the Hyde Act would immediately change the availability of abortion for millions of Americans. Politically, this may be one of the most feasible ways for Harris to make good on her campaign promise to protect abortion access.
The Hyde Amendment is a congressional “ride-in” on the Department of Health and Human Services’ annual budget, meaning it must be reauthorized annually. Democrats first floated the idea of repealing the amendment in 2016 as part of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign platform. Reproductive rights groups have argued that the Hyde Amendment would effectively create a two-tier system of abortion care: one for patients who can pay out of pocket, and another for poor patients and women of color, who are disproportionately reliant on Medicaid and more likely to need abortions. At the same time, Democrats were increasingly reliant on young, non-white and female voters who may be interested in abortion rights issues.
“There was a stronger focus on the intersection of reproductive rights with issues of racial justice and economic inequality,” Mary Ziegler, a legal historian of the US abortion debate, told me. “It’s no coincidence that the first presidential candidate to vocally advocate for the repeal of the Hyde Act was also the first woman to be nominated by the Democratic Party for president.” Whole Women’s Health v. HellerstedtThe Hyde Amendment, which eliminated overly burdensome state restrictions on abortion, also represents a political breakthrough. Once seen as “a political loser, a single-issue pro-abortion position,” opposition to the Hyde Amendment has quickly gained momentum, Ziegler said.
The issue didn’t translate into political victory in the 2016 election. But in 2020, Harris has positioned herself as one of Hyde’s toughest challengers. Biden as a candidate has been more ambiguous. Biden’s campaign reaffirmed its support for Hyde just one day before he pledged to overturn the bill. Faced (Biden asked him about his sudden change of attitude during one primary debate.) Still, as president, Biden consistently removed the Hyde limit from his annual Health and Human Services budget proposals, even though Congress reinserted it into the final federal budget each year. Harris, too, has signaled she continues to oppose the Hyde Amendment. “The Vice President continues to support repealing the Hyde Amendment,” a spokesperson for Harris’ campaign told me in an email.
Repealing the Hyde Act would immediately eliminate longstanding restrictions on abortion. Currently, of the 36 states without abortion bans, 17 require Medicaid recipients to pay for abortions out of pocket. The remaining 19 states and the District of Columbia do not provide such funding, meaning that one in five women of reproductive age who have Medicaid cannot get coverage for most abortions. For many of these women, paying out of pocket is not possible, and many others are forced to postpone the procedure. Increased costs and riskswhile raising funds.
Removing the amendment does not invalidate the post-amendment provision.Dobbs Because state governments ban abortion, Medicaid recipients in abortion-restricting areas would have to travel out of state for an abortion, but abortion advocates could redirect funds currently spent on abortions to emergency travel and similar efforts. And Medicaid “would no longer treat abortion separately from other pregnancy-related care,” Madison Roberts, senior legislative counsel for reproductive rights at the ACLU, told me.
Harris would face an uphill battle in Congress if she were to propose removing the Hyde Clause from the HHS budget. Biden’s Hyde-free budget passed the House in 2021 before the amendment was reinstated during negotiations with the Republican-controlled Senate. Republicans could re-insert the Hyde Clause in the budget if they regain control of the Senate in November. Even Democrats who oppose abortion bans may be hesitant to support Medicaid coverage for abortion services. Still, Harris has a stronger track record of defending abortion access than Biden, who has long maintained that his Catholic faith is against abortion while supporting the right of others to choose abortion. Even within the Biden administration, Harris has made the issue one of her priorities. Earlier this year, she said, “I’m a Democrat. I …counter extremist attacksHer advocacy on “reproductive freedom,” as the White House puts it, and her strong interest in restoring abortion protections could make her a more persuasive messenger than Biden in the effort to repeal the Hyde Act. summary“Joe Biden abortioncried Kamala Harris.
National backlash Dobbs It may also have convinced more lawmakers that voters support abortion access. “Voters who were not naturally averse to certain restrictions on abortion are voting in record numbers to protect abortion rights,” Ziegler said. “Every time there’s a vote on abortion in Congress, it will be in the spotlight, making it more difficult for Republicans to preserve the Hyde Law.” And because repealing it would leave state abortion laws in place, it may face less opposition in Congress than an attempt to codify it. egg It protects and takes precedence over state power.
However, the factors that make the Hyde Act possible to repeal would also be limited in their impact, and its effects would vary widely from state to state, especially in the context of existing abortion bans. While repealing the Hyde Act would be a major victory for the Harris Administration, it may not dramatically change the overall landscape of abortion in the United States. Rather, it would reflect a broader shift in how the country handles abortion and signal that, for the first time in half a century, the federal government considers abortion a standard medical procedure that should be funded like many other medical procedures.
