"A ban on taxpayer funding of abortion is the will of the people and ought to be the law of the land," said then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2011. Republicans have tried, also unsuccessfully, to write the Hyde funding prohibitions into permanent law. Proposed elimination of the language was included in the Democratic Party's 2016 platform. Over the years, Democrats have worked, unsuccessfully, to eliminate the Hyde Amendment, charging that it unfairly harms low-income women who cannot afford to pay for abortions. Hyde-like language has been added to other annual spending bills over the years, so federal abortion funding is also now forbidden in private health insurance plans for federal employees, women in federal prisons, those in the Peace Corps and women in the military, among others. During that time, the only exception was for abortions required to save a pregnant woman's life. The rape and incest exceptions, for example, were not included in the annual HHS spending bill from 1981-93. It has been included as a rider every year since 1977 to federal spending bills and its exact language changes from time to time. Current exceptions allow for funding in cases of rape, incest or "where a physical condition endangers a woman's life unless an abortion is performed."īut the Hyde Amendment is not permanent law. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), an anti-abortion champion who died in 2007, prohibits federal funding of abortion in Medicaid and several other health programs run by the Department of Health and Human Services. Here's a bit of the history of how we got here. Republicans generally want more restrictions on abortion funding. Now a similar argument between Democrats and Republicans is slowing progress on a bill that could help cut soaring premiums and help stabilize the ACA.Īt issue is the extent to which the Hyde Amendment - language commonly used by Congress to prohibit most federal abortion funding - should be incorporated into any new legislation affecting the health law. The Affordable Care Act very nearly failed to become law back in 2010 because of a dispute among Democrats over how to handle abortion in the bill.
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