Ask the Expert: Jessica Arons on the Hyde Amendment

What is the Hyde amendment?

The Hyde Amendment bans federal Medicaid funding for abortion care in almost all circumstances. It was first passed in 1977 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1980. It is an annual appropriations rider, which means that it is attached to funding bills every year. It is not a permanent law. It is attached to bills that fund the Health and Human Services Department as well as several other government agencies.

Over time, the Hyde Amendment has been expanded, and that policy has been placed on other government-run or -managed health care programs like Medicare, the Indian Health Service, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, prisons, the military, and a few others. And earlier this year, this policy was also attached to the health reform bill, the Affordable Care Act, and an executive order signed by President Obama, which will impose similar restrictions on the health plans offered in exchanges that will be set up by 2014.

These bans prohibit the government from funding abortion care in almost all circumstances. There are only exceptions in most cases to protect the life of the pregnant woman or when pregnancy results from rape or incest. Some of these bans are even more narrow in that they don't even include all three of those exceptions. And none of them include an exception to protect the health of the pregnant woman let alone the number of other reasons a woman may have for wanting an abortion.

What are the effects of abortion funding bans?

Most women are still able to obtain the abortion they need despite these funding bans, but only after great personal cost and sacrifice to themselves and their loved ones. Sometimes they must forego essential needs like rent, utilities, or food; they must pawn items, and sometimes they must resort to desperate acts in order to raise the money that they need. If they are lucky they are able to obtain assistance from a charitable abortion fund in their area, but private charity is never enough to meet the full need.

The ones who are unable to raise enough money in time may take matters into their own hands and try to self-induce an abortion. They may consider suicide, or they may have to carry the pregnancy to term against their will. Estimates vary, but approximately one-third of women who seek an abortion end up having a child because they could not afford the abortion.

Why are abortion bans particularly harmful for women of color?

Low-income women of all backgrounds are deeply impacted by the Hyde Amendment and abortion funding bans, but women of color are disproportionately affected by these bans for a number of reasons. First, women of color, including those of reproductive age, are disproportionately represented among the poor. Second, because they are disproportionately represented among the economically disadvantaged, they are more likely to be to be enrolled in government-run or -managed health programs. Third, again because of their socioeconomic status, women of color have high health disparities across the board, including unintended pregnancy and abortion. Add all this up, and they are more likely to need abortion care, less likely to be able to pay for an abortion out of pocket, and more likely to be enrolled in a government-run or -managed program - in other words, a program that has an abortion funding restriction. In this way, the Hyde Amendment is a civil rights issue as well as a woman's issue and a poverty issue