HYDE AMENDMENT

Beginning in 1976, Congress adopted a series of measures (amendments to appropriation bills, and joint resolutions) prohibiting the use of any federal funds in the Medicaid program to pay for the costs of abortions. These provisions were known collectively as the "Hyde Amendment," after their original sponsor, Representative Henry J. Hyde of Illinois.

All versions of the amendment contained exceptions permitting federal funding of an abortion when the woman's pregnancy endangered her life. Some of them also permitted funding of abortions when pregnancies resulted from rape or incest. One version included still another exception when two physicians determined that "severe and long-lasting physical health damage to the mother would result" from a full-term pregnancy.

The Medicaid program was designed to provide federal financial assistance to states that reimbursed needy persons for medical treatment. Funds were provided for reimbursing the expenses of childbirth—at an average cost per recipient around nine times the cost of abortions. Some states continued to provide funds for needy women's abortions. In other states, the effect of the Hyde Amendment was to deny to poor women the financial assistance they needed to exercise the constitutional right recognized in roe v. wade (1973): to decide whether to terminate their pregnancies. Critics argued that the amendment was an unconstitutional wealth discrimination, but the Supreme Court upheld its validity, 5–4, in harris v. mcrae (1980).

Kenneth L. Karst
(1986)

Bibliography

Perry, Michael J. 1980 Why the Supreme Court Was Plainly Wrong in the Hyde Amendment Case: A Brief Comment on Harris v. McRae. Stanford Law Review 32:1113–1128.