Federal ban on abortion funding may be near end

The Hyde Amendment, which since 1977 has banned nearly all federal funding for abortions for lowincome women, seems likely to survive this year despite newfound opposition from President Biden. But there are signs the tide is turning.

Biden, who abruptly reversed his longtime support for the amendment as a presidential candidate in 2019, has indicated he will not include the funding limits in his proposed 202122 budget. It would be the first Hydefree presidential budget since 1993, when newly elected President Bill Clinton proposed a spending plan that contained unrestricted abortion funding — funding that was resoundingly rejected by the Democraticcontrolled House and Senate.

Every presidential budget since then has included the Hyde Amendment from the outset.

This could also be the first time in 45 years that the House of Representatives approves a budget without the Hyde Amendment. The Appropriations Committee chair, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, DConn., promised at a December hearing to include abortion funds in the budget sent to the House floor, saying it was time to enable women “to make deeply personal life decisions without politicians inserting themselves into the doctor’s office.”

In a possible preview of a floor vote, opponents of abortion, led by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, RWash., tried to add Hyde Amendment language to the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill to prohibit any of its funds from being used for abortions. She enlisted an additional 205 supporters in the 435seat House, but Democratic majorities in House committees rejected the amendment, and it was not included in the bill Biden signed last week.

The situation is different in the Senate. Filibuster rules would require 60 votes to consider a budget that removed the Hyde Amendment. And supporters of abortion funding have not yet mustered even a majority in the 100seat chamber.

A 2019 bill to write the Hyde Amendment into law, automatically including it in future budgets, was defeated in the Senate but won support from two Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. They were joined by a third Democrat, Tim Kaine of Virginia, in support of an amendment that would have banned abortion funding in the COVID bill.

A budget without Hyde Amendment restrictions is “obviously on the wish list” but “seems unlikely” this year, said San Francisco attorney Beth Parker, who represents several Planned Parenthood affiliates in California.

But Rep. Barbara Lee, DOakland, cochair of the House ProChoice Caucus, said she is “cautiously optimistic.”

Lee was a young staff assistant to Rep. Ron Dellums, DOakland, in 1976 and remembers the anger she felt when Rep. Henry Hyde, RIll., first introduced the amendment, three years after the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to abortion in Roe vs. Wade.

The House and Senate, both then solidly controlled by Democrats, endorsed Hyde’s proposal to ban federal funding for abortions in all U.S. health programs — Medicaid, Medicare, the military, the Peace Corps, tribal health programs, federal prisons and Washington, D.C. — except for cases of rape, incest or danger to the woman’s life. The court upheld the amendment in 1980.

“I knew I was going to try one day to get rid of that” amendment, Lee said in an interview. First elected to Congress in 1988, she proposed a bill six years ago to repeal the Hyde Amendment, enlisted 30 colleagues as cosponsors, and said she expects 200 to join her this session. The Democratic Party election platform first called for a repeal of the amendment in 2016 and did so again last year.

“If we do our work, we’ll get it passed,” Lee said. “The public is with us.”

Not so, said Rep. Tom Cole, ROkla., at the Appropriations Committee hearing in December. Most of the public supports a funding restriction that “protects the conscience rights of the great majority of Americans,” he said.

His statement is supported by polls consistently finding that majorities oppose federal funding of abortions. But polls also show that about twothirds of Americans still support Roe vs. Wade. And in the 34 states that do not provide their own funding, the Hyde Amendment has made abortions virtually inaccessible for many lowincome women.

California’s Medicaid program, called MediCal, has covered poor women’s abortions since a state Supreme Court ruling in 1981. The court said MediCal already funded childbirth and must treat reproductive choices equally.

As a senator from Delaware, Biden voted for the original Hyde Amendment in 1976 and later backed a more restrictive version that would have denied abortion funding in cases of rape or incest. Biden maintained his support of Hyde at the outset of his presidential campaign but, under mounting criticism from liberals and women’srights advocates, announced an aboutface at an Atlanta fundraiser in June 2019.

“Circumstances have changed,” the candidate said.

On Jan. 22, his third day in office and the 48th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris issued a statement saying they were “committed to making sure everyone has access to care — including reproductive health care — regardless of income, race, zip code, health insurance status or immigration status.”

Foes of abortion contend Biden went further in his COVID19 bill. Of the $1.9 trillion in appropriations, said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, more than $400 billion could be used to pay for abortions or for insurance plans that cover elective abortions.

But most of the sum she cited was the $350 billion allotment to state, local and tribal governments, reeling from revenue losses and health costs related to the coronavirus. The legislation does include as much as $35 billion for a sixmonth subsidy of the insurance program known as COBRA, which covers laidoff workers who have lost their health coverage and could be used, in some cases, to pay for abortions.

The Hyde Amendment does not apply to COBRA. How long will it apply to Medicaid and other federal health programs?

Until “members know they’re not going to be reelected if they don’t support an end to discrimination,” said Lee, who has opposed the amendment for 45 years. “I think we’re close to that day.”