"Codifying" Hyde: How Pro-Choice is Our Government?

In a victory for women's health, the House of Representatives voted to remove a ban on abortion funding in the District of Columbia, allowing the nation's capital to direct local taxes toward helping low-income women with the cost of abortion. It's miraculous that this bill passed at a time when anti-choice Congressmen are falling over one another in their eagerness to ensure that no tax dollars are used to fund abortions in the health care reform bill.

I suppose we would call them demonic trailblazers if the Hyde  Amendment didn't already exist. Passed by Congress in 1976, the Hyde Amendment excludes abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income women by the federal government through Medicaid. Anti-choice Congressmen are now trying to create further barriers by making it nearly impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new health care system to offer abortion coverage, essentially denying women the right to purchase a plan with abortion coverage.

Anti-choice opponents are spinning the tighter abortion restrictions for the health care reform bill as simply "codifying" the Hyde Amendment. You say codifying, I say politicians continuing their back door efforts to undermine Roe v. Wade and disrupt major health care legislation. Of course, these tactics of politicizing abortions are what we’ve come to expect from anti-choice opponents.  What’s unsettling is our government’s continued willingness to appease them.

Between Roe v. Wade and the Hyde Amendment, our government is sending more mixed signals than a commitment-phobic ex-boyfriend. For instance, if a woman chooses to carry her pregnancy to term, Medicaid will assist her with the appropriate medical care. However, if she chooses to exercise her legal right to end her pregnancy, Medicaid will not help cover an abortion -- even if the continued pregnancy could harm her health. The only cases where Medicaid would provide abortion coverage is if a woman is the victim of rape or incest, or if her life is in danger.

Abortion is either a legal part of our basic reproductive health care or it isn't. As long as our government continues creating dangerous loopholes, like the Hyde Amendment, based or religious or "moral" grounds, the door will be open to these ongoing attacks on women's reproductive health and the right to choose. Former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said that "taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." I say allowing people to exercise their right to make deeply personal decisions about their own bodies is the price we pay for living in a democracy.

Photo courtesy of Big Stock Photo