From Right to Privilege: The Hyde Amendment and Abortion Access
Amanda Aoun
When the Supreme Court made their decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973, it seemed as though abortion had finally been secured as a constitutional right. However, this ruling came after more than a century of contested abortion law in the United States. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the American Medical Association led campaigns to criminalize abortion, which pushed midwives and women healers out of reproductive care[1]. Illegal abortion had been widespread and dangerous; even in the early twentieth century, physicians estimated that thousands of abortions were done annually, many of them resulting in septic infections and hospitalizations[2]. Long before Roe, access to reproductive care was already shaped by race and class, as Rickie Solinger shows in her study of how unwed pregnancy was treated differently for white women and women of color[3]. Within a few years after the Roe v. Wade decision, the promise of abortion access was strategically narrowed. In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which banned the use of federal Medicaid funds for most abortions. This did not overturn Roe v Wade, but it did quietly transform abortion from a legal right into an economic privilege, one that poor women could rarely afford to exercise. As Susan Gunty bluntly stated, “The Hyde Amendment did not eliminate abortion; it eliminated abortion for poor women.”[4] The Hyde Amendment redefined abortion rights by turning a constitutional guarantee into a privilege dependent on income. It represented a shift in strategy among anti-abortion advocates, where instead of directly challenging Roe, they targeted public funding.[5] Representative Henry Hyde himself admitted that his goal was total abortion prohibition, but that the only vehicle available was the Medicaid bill.
Historian Maris Vinovskis emphasizes that this marked a turning point where anti-abortion lawmakers learned to restrict access not by banning abortion, but by eliminating the means to obtain it. They used the appropriations process to accomplish “what could not be achieved through constitutional amendment.”[6] By embedding abortion restrictions into routine spending bills, lawmakers created a powerful way to undermine Roe without technically violating it. An immediate effect was the creation of a two-tiered system of reproductive rights. Wealthier women could continue to obtain abortions, while lower income women, like those on Medicaid, were forced to carry their pregnancies to term. The Supreme Court validated this in Maher v. Roe in 1977 and in Harris v. McRae in 1980, maintaining that while the Constitution guaranteed the right to abortion, it did not require the government to make that right financially accessible to all. As the court stated, the government “need not remove [obstacles] not of its own creation.”[7] This logic fit neatly into the rise of the New Right. The fetus was being recast as a protected moral subject, and as Sara Dubow describes it, it was transformed into “a symbol of national innocence and moral purity.”[8] At the same time, historian Linda Gordon brings up that public funding has never been neutral, and has always reflected judgements about which women should bear children and which should not.[9] In this way, Hyde did not invent reproductive inequality, but it definitely sharpened it.
This raises the question of how the Hyde Amendment reshaped abortion access in the United States between 1976 and 1999, and why it disproportionately affected poor women and women of color. This paper argues that the Hyde Amendment transformed abortion from a constitutional right into an economic privilege. By restricting Medicaid funding, the amendment created a two-tier system of reproductive access in which poor women and women of color were effectively denied the ability to exercise a legal right.
Historiography
Historians who study reproduction agree that abortion in the United States has always been shaped by race, class, and power. Linda Gordon shows that reproductive control has never been distributed equally, as wealthier white women have long had greater access to contraception and abortion, while poor women and women of color faced barriers or state interference[10]. Johanna Schoen adds to this by examining how public health and welfare systems sometimes pushed sterilization or withheld care, showing that the state has often intervened most heavily in the reproductive lives of marginalized women[11]. Together, these historians argue that Hyde fits into a much older pattern of the government regulating the fertility of women who had the least political power.
Another group of historians focuses on law, policy, and the political meaning of abortion in the late twentieth century. Michele Goodwin analyzes how legal frameworks that claimed to protect fetal life often limited women’s autonomy, especially poor women[12]. Maris Vinovskis explains how anti-abortion lawmakers learned to use the appropriations process to restrict abortion access without challenging Roe directly[13]. Meanwhile, Sara Dubow traces how the fetus became a powerful cultural symbol, which helped conservatives rally support for funding restrictions like Hyde[14]. These scholars help explain how Hyde gained legitimacy both legally and culturally, and why it became such a durable policy.
A third set of historians look at activism, feminism, and the reshaping of abortion politics in the 1970s and 1980s. Rosalind Petchesky shows how abortion became central to the rise of the New Right, as antifeminist and religious groups used the issue to organize a broader conservative movement[15]. Loretta Ross and other reproductive justice scholars explain how women of color challenged the narrow “choice” framework of the mainstream pro-choice movement, arguing that legality meant little without the resources needed to make real decisions[16]. Their work highlights that Hyde did not only restrict abortion for poor women, but also pushed activists to rethink what reproductive rights should even look like.
Taken together, these historians show three major themes of long-standing inequality in reproductive politics, legal tools reinforcing those inequalities, and the political shifts that made Hyde a defining part of conservative identity. What is still less explored, and where this paper enters the conversation, is how the Hyde Amendment created a two-tier system of abortion access between 1976 and 1999, and how that funding gap turned a constitutional right into an economic privilege. This paper brings these together to show how policy, law, and inequality reshaped the meaning of abortion rights in the United States.
Section 1: The Origins of the Hyde Amendment
The Hyde Amendment did not appear out of nowhere, and rather developed in a very particular political movement where abortion had become one of the most emotionally charged issues in American politics.[17] After Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, opponents of abortion had to reconsider their strategy.[18] They could no longer rely on state criminal bans, since they were now unconstitutional. Therefore, instead of attempting to outlaw abortion directly, they began to look for indirect ways to limit who could actually get one. The question became not whether abortion was legal or unconstitutional, but whether it was accessible.[19] This shift happened at the same time that the country was experiencing a wave of distrust towards the federal government after Watergate, along with concerns about inflation and federal spending.[20] Additionally, as a movement over family values escalated, the federal government was infringing on families’ privacy and rights. These anxieties made it easier to frame abortion as both a moral issue, and a financial one as well. Historian Maris Vinovskis notes that the Hyde Amendment represented a new strategy, shifting away from trying to overturn Roe and towards “an effort to restrict the practical ability to obtain abortions through funding limitations.”[21] Anti abortion lawmakers realized that they were still able to limit abortions by cutting off the financial aid that allowed poor women to get them.[22]
To understand this shift, it is important to recognize that the abortion debate had already intensified in the years leading up to Roe. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Catholic organizations such as the National Right to Life Committee had begun mobilizing against abortion laws in states like New York and California[23]. At the same time, Medicaid, which was created in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, became central to debates about welfare spending and the moral regulation of poor women[24]. Because Medicaid disproportionately served low income women and women of color, it became an early battleground for questions about who deserved state funded healthcare and reproductive autonomy.
Representative Henry Hyde was the first major figure behind this effort, and he did not try to hide his intentions. During debate in Congress, he stated “I certainly would prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion; unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the Medicaid bill.”[25] He made it clear that the Amendment was not about government budgeting or fiscal responsibility, but was about restricting abortion access by targeting low income women who depended on Medicaid.[26] This strategy also lined up quite well with emerging political alliances, as fiscal conservatives who opposed federal spending could support Hyde because it reduced a publicly funded service.[27] At the same time, religious conservatives who morally opposed abortion also supported Hyde. The idea of “taxpayer conscience”, or that people should not have to financially support something they disagree with, became an effective talking point.[28] However, this strategy also drew on a much longer history of the government controlling the reproductive lives of women, especially poor women and women of color. Nellie Gray, the March for Life national director, made a statement in a 1977 news journal explaining that “pro-life organizations will only have one chance at a human rights amendment and they must do it right by seeing to it that abortion is not permitted in the United States[29].” Gray’s warning reflected how strongly anti-abortion leaders viewed Hyde as a stepping stone toward a much larger project of restricting abortion nationwide. Her statement also highlighted the growing belief among conservative activists that federal funds could be used to reshape reproductive policy, which would disproportionately affect the same women who have already consistently been targeted.
Throughout the twentieth century, the state encouraged childbirth among white, middle class women while discouraging it among women considered “undesirable”, which often meant poor women, Black women, Native American women, etc.[30] In this sense, the Hyde Amendment fit into an existing pattern of allowing privileged women to maintain reproductive autonomy, while placing the greatest burden onto those already facing economic and racial inequality. The structure of the Amendment also built inequality directly into access. Since Hyde was attached to the federal appropriations bill for health and welfare, it had to be renewed every year.[31] This meant that each year, Congress debated what exceptions should be allowed, and whether Medicaid would cover abortion in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s life.[32] These exceptions were often extremely limited, difficult to qualify for, or inconsistent across states.[33] When in practice, they rarely resulted in meaningful access.
The impact of Hyde was immediate and severe. There was an enormous drop in Medicaid funded abortions, and while states were technically allowed to use their own funds to pay for abortion services, most did not.[34] As a result, abortion access quickly became dependent not only on personal income, but also on geography. A woman’s ability to exercise a supposedly constitutional right now depended on which state she lived in and whether she had the financial means to pay out of pocket.
By the late 1970s, the Hyde Amendment had created a two-tiered system of reproductive access. Abortion was still legal, but the ability to obtain one became tied to class and race.[35] For many women on Medicaid, especially Black and Latina women who were already disproportionately represented among low-income populations, the right to choose existed only in theory.[36] What Hyde actually accomplished was a shift from abortion as a universal and constitutional right to abortion as something you had to be able to afford. In this way, Hyde did not just restrict funding, it redefined what rights meant in the United States. It showed that a right could remain legally intact, yet still be functionally unreachable for some.
Section 2: Legal Challenges and Judicial Endorsement of Inequality
After the Hyde Amendment was passed in 1976, it quickly faced legal challenges from abortion rights advocates who argued that cutting off Medicaid funding violated the constitutional protections that Roe v. Wade put in place.[37] Their basic argument being that if the government recognized the right to choose abortion, then it should not be allowed to create conditions that made that right impossible to exercise.[38] In other words, they argued that a right without access is not really a right at all. However, when these cases reached the Supreme Court, the Court ultimately sided with the federal government, which confirmed that the state could acknowledge a right while also refusing to make it materially available. The first major decision was Maher v. Roe in 1977. This case involved a Connecticut rule that denied Medicaid funding for abortions even when the state continued to cover costs associated with childbirth.[39] The plaintiffs argued that this policy violated the Equal Protection Clause by treating poor women differently from those who could pay privately.[40] However, the Supreme Court rejected this argument, and in the majority opinion stated that “the Constitution does not confer an entitlement to such funds as may be necessary to realize the full advantage of the constitutional freedom.”[41] This reveals the Court’s broader stance, as the justices separated the idea of a right from the state’s obligation to make that right actually meaningful. By framing funding as an “entitlement,” the Court implied that financial accessibility was a luxury, not a constitutional requirement. This language helped transform abortion from a guaranteed right into a conditional one, depending on a woman’s financial status.
This reasoning set the stage for a more consequential case, Harris v. McRae. In 1980, this case dealt specifically with the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment.[42] The plaintiffs again argued that denying Medicaid funding effectively denied the right to abortion to poor women. They also argued that Hyde violated the Establishment Clause because it reflected religious beliefs, particularly those of the Catholic Church.[43] However, the Court upheld the Amendment, and Justice Potter Stewart wrote for the majority, stating that although the government “may not place obstacles in the path of a woman seeking an abortion, it need not remove those not of its own creation.”[44] This distinction allowed the Court to reinterpret poverty not as a structural condition shaped by state policy but as an individual misfortune that is outside of constitutional concern. Fayle Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood Federation, challenged the courts findings, stating that “the court has reaffirmed that all women have a constitutionally protected right to an abortion, but has denied poor women the means by which to exercise that right[45].” Scholars like Michele Goodwin have also argued that this logic effectively weaponized economic inequality by making it a neutral, legally permissible barrier to reproductive autonomy[46]. The court drew a clear line between legal rights and material access, claiming that the Constitution protects the first and not the second.
The distinction between rights and access became one of the most influential and damaging ideas in later abortion policy. The Court’s logic suggested that if poverty prevented a woman from obtaining an abortion, that was simply her personal situation and not something the government was responsible for addressing.[47] Though for poor women, this effectively meant that the right to abortion was conditional on wealth. Justice Thurgood Marshall pointed this out directly in his dissent, arguing that the decision reduced the right to choose to “a right in name only for women who cannot afford to exercise it.”[48] Marshall understood that legal recognition was meaningless when economic barriers stood in the way. Historians and legal scholars have also pointed out that these rulings reflected broader anxieties about welfare and poor women’s reproductive autonomy. Johanna Schoen notes that after Hyde, “the issue was no longer legality but economic access. The ability to choose became a measure of one’s class position.”[49] The Court’s decisions essentially cast poverty as a private problem, not a systemic barrier. By accepting the argument that the state did not have to fund abortions, the Court allowed economic inequality to become a legal tool for shaping reproductive outcomes.
The Harris decision also intensified racial disparities in reproductive healthcare, and since women of color were disproportionately represented among Medicaid recipients, they experienced the most direct consequences of the Amendment. Linda Gordon argues that policies like Hyde fit into a longer pattern where the state has “regulated fertility more tightly among poor women and women of color.”[50] This meant that Hyde did not simply limit abortion funding, but it also reinforced existing racial and economic hierarchies within reproductive control. The immediate impact of these decisions can clearly be seen in the data. In states that fully implemented the Hyde restrictions, Medicaid funded abortions dropped by more than ninety nine percent, essentially disappearing within the first year.[51] Clinics that had relied on Medicaid reimbursement closed, and in many communities, the nearest clinic became hours away.[52] For low income women, the cost of travel, time off from work, and childcare created many new layers of burden on top of the medical expense itself.[53]
Once the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde Amendment in Harris v McRae, abortion access in the United States became uneven, and heavily dependent on geography and income. Even though Roe v. Wade technically still guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion, the Hyde Amendment meant that states were able to decide whether they would use their own funds to support abortion services for Medicaid recipients. This resulted in what many scholars describe as a patchwork system of reproductive access, where a woman’s ability to exercise her rights depended on her ZIP code and her bank account instead of a universal legal standard.[54] Since Black, Latina, and Native women were disproportionately represented among low income Medicaid recipients, it is clear that the restrictions had a racial impact, even if the policy did not mention race outright.
This pattern was not new, as Johanna Schoen writes that “the state has historically encouraged childbirth among white, middle class women while discouraging it among poor women and women of color.”[55] Hyde simply reshaped that older system into a modern one, using funding instead of forced sterilization or criminal statutes. Public funding decisions always reflect judgements about who should reproduce and who should not, or in other words, which lives were valued and which were not.[56] Meanwhile, the procedures themselves became more expensive and more difficult to access. Without Medicaid coverage, many women had to delay their abortions while they gathered money to pay for the procedure. This then led to abortions being performed at later gestational stages which made them more medically complicated and more costly. As Schoen explains, delays caused by funding restrictions increased both physical risk and emotional strain for patients.[57] Clinics in poorer regions, especially in the south and midwest, struggled to stay open without Medicaid reimbursement, which left many areas without any providers at all.[58] The combination of travelling long distances and making arrangements to pause their lives for the time being was much harder for lower income women than it would have been for wealthier women. The cost of abortion became a structural burden, one created by the conditions of poverty. For many women, these obstacles made abortion inaccessible, even if they technically had the legal right to obtain one.
By upholding Hyde, the Supreme Court effectively established this two-tiered system, with the Court confirming that constitutional rights did not guarantee the means to exercise them. Reproductive autonomy was made dependent on individual financial circumstances and the state level political culture. The legal battles following Hyde clarified this, and made it clear that the fight over abortion would be decided by who could afford it.
Section 3: Culture Wars
By the 1980s, the Hyde Amendment had become more than a funding restriction. It became a symbol. Beginning in 1976 as a policy decision buried in the federal budget, it grew into one of the defining features of the conservative movement. Hyde showed how questions about family, morality, and religion could be folded into debates about government spending, which linked fiscal and moral conservatism.[59]
Before the late 1970s, abortion had not been clearly split along party lines. There were liberal Republicans who supported Roe v Wade, and conservative Democrats who opposed abortion. But this political landscape changed dramatically as the New Right emerged. Evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich mobilized conservative Christians around issues such as school desegregation, the Equal Rights Amendment, and sex education[60]. Abortion became the unifying issue they needed, which was a morally charged topic that could bind fiscal conservatives, religious traditionalists, and states’ rights advocates. The political backlash against Roe occurred at the same time that the evangelical Christians were becoming more politically organized.[61] Hyde provided a concrete policy issue around which these groups could mobilize, and helped them forge a new partisan identity. These debates that began over funding became part of a larger cultural conflict about the meaning of family, sexuality, and arguably, national values. The rhetoric that surrounded the Hyde Amendment reflected this shift, because instead of discussing abortion primarily in terms of women’s autonomy or health, conservatives increasingly framed the debate around the fetus. Sara Dubow argues that by the 1980s, the fetus had come to symbolize “a national innocence and moral purity,” a life seen as separate from the woman and one deserving of state protection.[62] This transformation was crucial because it allowed abortion opponents to present themselves as protecting vulnerable life instead of restricting women’s rights.
President Ronald Reagan played a major role in pushing this narrative. Although he had signed an abortion reform law when he was governor of California, by the time of his presidency in 1980, he had fully embraced the anti-abortion cause. In his 1983 essay “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” he argued, “We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life, the unborn, without diminishing the value of all human life.”[63] With this statement, Reagan tied abortion to a broader moral crisis, suggesting that perhaps the nation’s character and spirituality were at stake. This argument resonated strongly with any evangelicals who had helped usher him into office, as he frequently spoke about the United States as a nation in need of moral renewal. His rhetoric helped solidify abortion as a moral anchor in the conservative identity, and made support for Hyde a test for Republican lawmakers.[64] In this environment, opposing the Hyde Amendment became politically risky, as it could be interpreted as rejecting the moral vision that Reagan had tied so closely to national identity.
Meanwhile, the Hyde Amendment’s budget framing allowed conservatives to present the issue in the language of limited government rather than explicitly presenting it as moral regulation. The idea that taxpayers should not be forced to support abortion with public funds gained traction among people who might not have outright embraced the anti-abortion movement. As Maris Vinovskis explains, Hyde represented a new style of policy making in which moral goals were pursued through fiscal restrictions rather than constitutional bans.[65] It was a quieter and more durable form of regulation.
Blending moral politics and fiscal conservatism also helped solidify the broader culture wars of the 1980s and 90s. Issues like school prayers, sex education, gay rights, and welfare reform became linked together as defending “traditional values.”[66] The Hyde Amendment fit neatly into this framework, allowing conservatives to argue that they were simultaneously protecting unborn life and protecting taxpayers from government overreach.[67] They saw abortion as both a moral failure and a misuse of public funds. However, this shift also made it increasingly difficult for Democrats to maintain a unified position on abortion. While most Democratic lawmakers supported the legal right to abortion, many were hesitant to outright oppose the Hyde Amendment, avoiding the risk of being labeled as anti-religion.[68] As a result, the amendment was repeatedly renewed with bipartisan support. A newspaper article from 1993 discussed the twenty years post-Roe, stating that Hyde displayed a “masterful understanding of the rules, procedures, and time constraints of the House,” as he “rounded up 254 of his colleagues (including 98 Democrats) to sustain [his amendment] and prohibit federal funding to pay for abortions for poor women[69].” The article clearly showed that Hyde’s durability did not only rest on conservatives but on a bipartisan reluctance to challenge Hyde as it was framed as fiscally responsible and morally protective.
By the 1990s, the logic behind Hyde had become ingrained in national political identity. The idea that abortion was something the government should not fund became widely accepted. This masked the fact that Hyde had made abortion a class dependent right, one available to those who could afford it and inaccessible to those who could not.[70] It played a key role in shaping these culture wars, by turning the reproductive choices of women into questions of morality and national identity, instead of questions of justice and autonomy.
Section 4: The Rise of Reproductive Justice
The widening inequalities created by the Hyde Amendment did more than restrict access, as they exposed the limits of the existing pro-choice framework and set the stage for a new kind of activism. The measures taken by states may have seemed procedural, but combined with the lack of funding, they created this maze of barriers for low income women. Before the inequalities created by Hyde pushed activism in new directions, the reproductive rights movement of the 1970s was dominated by second wave feminist organizations such as NOW and NARAL[71]. These groups framed abortion primarily through the language of privacy and individual choice, relying heavily on Roe’s constitutional logic[72].Yet this framework was limited. It often centered around middle class white women and assumed that once legal barriers were removed, access would naturally follow[73]. Poor women, women of color, and immigrant women repeatedly testified that legality meant little without affordable care, transportation, or childcare[74]. Their experiences highlighted structural inequalities that mainstream pro choice rhetoric did not address. By the late 1980s and 1990s, many reproductive rights organizations began referring to the United States as having two systems of abortion access. In wealthier states, where medicaid or state funds covered abortion, access remained relatively stable. However, in other states, abortion access had become severely limited. The concept of “choice,” which had been the foundation of pro-choice activism, no longer fit the reality. Abortion had shifted from a universal constitutional right to a right that had to be purchased. The Hyde Amendment redrew the map of reproductive freedom, determining where and to whom abortion was available.
While the Hyde Amendment strengthened the conservative movement and reshaped how abortion was discussed in national politics, it also pushed reproductive rights activism in a new and beautiful direction. In the 70s, many mainstream feminist organizations had framed abortion mainly as a matter of individual choice, drawing directly from the privacy language of Roe v. Wade.[75] The assumption was that if abortion was legal, women would be able to access it. But Hyde made it clear that legality and access were not the same thing, and that the concept of “choice” was far less meaningful for women who could not afford the procedure in the first place. At first, mainstream pro-choice organizations struggled to respond. Groups like the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now known as Reproductive Freedom for All) and NOW (the National Organization for Women) continued to fight Hyde through legislative appeals and court challenges, and focused on restoring Medicaid coverage.[76] However, these strategies were slow and had little success. Contemporary reports show how quickly grassroots feminist activism responded to Hyde. A 1979 Delaware County Daily Times article described more than forty NOW members and NARAL activists picketing a congressional dinner attended by Henry Hyde[77]. Protesters carried signs reading “Poor people don’t have a choice about my body,” and NOW’s Delaware County president Debbie Rubin told reporters that the Hyde Amendment “eliminates all abortions for poor women except when the life of the mother is in danger[78].” She warned that measures like Hyde did not stop abortion but instead “force a return to back-alley and self-inflicted abortions[79].” Meanwhile, women who were directly affected by Hyde were left to find practical ways to access the care they needed. This led to the early development of abortion funds, which were community based efforts in which volunteers raised money to help low income women pay for their abortions.[80] These funds showed that access could be supported by mutual aid and grassroots networks.
The deeper and more transformative opposition to Hyde came from activists who were already organizing around healthcare inequality, racism, and economic justice. The focus was on the fact that the same systems that restricted abortion access also failed to provide basic healthcare, childcare, housing, and social support.[81] For many women of color, the issue was not only the right to end a pregnancy, but also the right to raise children safely and with dignity[82]. This perspective was rooted in a longer history, as poor women and women of color had often faced contradictory and coercive forms of reproductive control, being denied contraception and abortion.[83] The Hyde Amendment did not create this dynamic, though it did extend it into the post-Roe era by making abortion services unattainable to those without financial resources. Linda Gordon notes that decisions about public funding have long reflected judgments about which women should bear children and which should not, and Hyde reinforces exactly this kind of hierarchy.[84]
By the early 1990s, these critiques began to merge into a new framework known as Reproductive Justice. This term was coined by a group of Black women activists in 1994 who argued that the mainstream pro-choice movement was focusing too narrowly on the legal right to abortion, ignoring the economic and social barriers that shaped many women’s decisions when it came to having an abortion.[85] They insisted that reproductive freedom was not only about ending a pregnancy, but was also about having the conditions necessary to make and sustain meaningful choices in the first place.[86] Reproductive autonomy clearly required more than just legal permission to have an abortion. Access to healthcare, living wages, and safe housing are only a few resources that help in the fight for reproductive autonomy[87]. Organizations like SisterSong, founded in 1997, helped establish reproductive justice as a national movement[88]. It brought together Black, Latina, Indigenous, and Asian American women to argue that reproductive rights should be understood as human rights, grounded more in equality than just privacy.[89] Their work highlighted that access to abortion, childcare, healthcare, and racial and economic justice were all deeply connected. The activism that emerged in response to the Hyde Amendment did not simply resist the policy, but it reframed the entire conversation about reproductive rights and freedoms. “Choice” was an incomplete framework, usually centered on the experiences of white middle class women and overlooking the realities of those with less resources.[90]
Conclusion
Nearly fifty years after its passage, the Hyde Amendment continues to shape reproductive access in the United States. It did not overturn Roe v Wade, and it did not need to. By restricting Medicaid funding, Hyde redefined abortion as something that had to be purchased personally, even though it had been framed as a constitutional right. It set a precedent for how lawmakers could limit rights indirectly, though economic policy rather than outright prohibition. The Supreme Court’s decision in Maher v Roe and Harris v McRae reinforced the shift by drawing a line between the right to choose and the ability for women to exercise that right. The court insisted that poverty was a private circumstance, not something that the state was obligated to help with. This stance made economic equality seem legally neutral, even as it was falling the hardest on poor women and women of color.
The result was a stratified system in which abortion remained legal but unevenly available. Access varied dramatically by state, income level, and race, and the disparities only grew through time as clinics closed and new restrictions were passed. Lawmakers began to justify restrictions as defense of life rather than limitation on women. Additionally, the activism that emerged from groups like the National Black Women’s Health Project and SisterSong reframed abortion access as a part of a broader struggle of reproductive justice, insisting that reproductive freedom means not only the right to end a pregnancy, but also the right to raise children in safe and secure environments. This exposed what Hyde had been showing all along, that rights are only meaningful when people have the resources to act on them.
On the one hand, the Hyde Amendment demonstrated how effectively lawmakers can use economic constraints to reshape constitutional rights without actually touching their legality. This persisted for decades, influencing battles over contraception access, parental consent laws, and clinic closures. On the other hand, Hyde also helped produce a more expansive movement for reproductive freedom, one that recognized the limits of legal victories without material support. The lesson learned from Hyde is that a right that cannot be accessed is not truly a right. The law might claim neutrality in withholding federal funds, but the consequences of that “neutrality” are deeply unequal. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022 completed what Hyde set in motion. By allowing states to ban abortion outright, Dobbs transformed the unequal access made byHyde into legal prohibition. The patterns of racial, geographic, and economic inequality exposed by Hyde now define the post-Dobbs landscape, showing that the struggle for reproductive freedom has always been connected to the struggle for equality.
Classroom Practice
Understanding the Hyde Amendment can also help social studies teachers think about how to teach topics like constitutional rights, inequality, and the ways legal decisions affect people’s everyday lives. For high school students, it can be difficult to understand how a right can exist on paper but still be unreachable in practice. The Hyde Amendment offers a clear example of this. Looking at cases like Maher v. Roe and Harris v. McRae helps students see how the Supreme Court can acknowledge a constitutional right while also allowing policies that make that right not accessible to certain groups. This gives teachers a concrete way to help students think about the difference between what the law says and how people actually experience it, which is an important part of civic learning.
This topic is also useful for teaching about political realignment and the culture wars of the late twentieth century. Abortion was not always a purely partisan issue, and Hyde helps show students how moral, religious, and economic arguments came together to reshape politics on a national level. When teachers use primary sources like congressional testimonies, protest coverage, and presidential speeches, students can trace how different groups framed abortion and funding restrictions, and how these debates shaped the identity of the New Right. This not only builds students’ analytical skills but also shows them how public policy becomes a cultural symbol, not just a legal decision. Hyde also creates an opportunity to introduce the concept of reproductive justice, especially when teaching about movements led by women of color. Many high school students have never considered how race, class, and geography influence who can actually exercise their rights. Discussing how organizations like the National Black Women’s Health Project and later SisterSong responded to Hyde helps students see how activism grows in response to inequality. Teachers never need to take a political stance to guide students through these conversations. Instead, they can highlight how different communities understood the consequences of Hyde and why some activists argued that “choice” alone was not enough.
All in all, the Hyde Amendment is a strong example for teaching disciplinary literacy in social studies. It encourages students to read court cases closely, compare historical interpretations, analyze political speeches, and connect policy decisions to real human outcomes. Using Hyde in the classroom shows students that history is not just about memorizing events, but can also be about understanding how power operates and how policies can reshape people’s lives.
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Reagan, Ronald. “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation.” The Catholic Lawyer the Catholic Lawyer Volume 30, no. 2 (1986). https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2212&context=tcl.
Ross, Loretta. “Understanding Reproductive Justice: Transforming the Pro-Choice Movement.” Off Our Backs 36, no. 4 (2006): 14–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20838711.
Schoen, Johanna. Choice and Coercion : Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=f8bc89c3-f4c2-36da-ba5d-809e9b26a981.
Solinger, Rickie. “‘Wake up Little Susie’: Single Pregnancy and Race in the ‘Pre-Roe v. Wade’ Era.” NWSA Journal 2, no. 4 (1990): 682–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4316090.
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Federal Funding of Abortions, 1977–1979. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0048/004800738repro.pdf
Vinovskis, Maris A. “The Politics of Abortion in the House of Representatives in 1976.” Michigan Law Review 77, no. 7 (1979): 1790–1827. https://doi.org/10.2307/1288043.
[1] Reagan, Leslie J. “‘About to Meet Her Maker’: Women, Doctors, Dying Declarations, and the State’s Investigation of Abortion, Chicago, 1867-1940.” The Journal of American History 77, no. 4 (1991): 1240–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/2078261.
[2] Reagan 1245
[3] Solinger, Rickie. “‘Wake up Little Susie’: Single Pregnancy and Race in the ‘Pre-Roe v. Wade’ Era.” NWSA Journal 2, no. 4 (1990): 682–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4316090.
[4] Gunty, Susan. “THE HYDE AMENDMENT AND MEDICAID ABORTIONS.” The Forum (Section of Insurance, Negligence and Compensation Law, American Bar Association) 16, no. 4 (1981): 825. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25762558.
[5] Vinovskis, Maris A. “The Politics of Abortion in the House of Representatives in 1976.” Michigan Law Review 77, no. 7 (1979). https://doi.org/10.2307/1288043.
[6] Vinovskis 1801
[7] Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/448/297/
[8] Dubow, Sara. Ourselves Unborn : A History of the Fetus in Modern America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=a4babef6-641b-3719-a368-8aa5e93e8575.
[9] Gordon, Linda. The Moral Property of Women : A History of Birth Control Politics in America. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=ea0e3984-56df-3fca-adb6-3fc070515698.
[10] Gordon 29-34
[11] Schoen, Johanna. Choice and Coercion : Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=f8bc89c3-f4c2-36da-ba5d-809e9b26a981.
[12] Goodwin, Michele. “Fetal Protection Laws: Moral Panic and the New Constitutional Battlefront.” California Law Review102, no. 4 (2014): 781–875. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23784354.
[13] Vinovskis 1793-1796
[14] Dubow 147-155
[15] Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack. “Antiabortion, Antifeminism, and the Rise of the New Right.” Feminist Studies 7, no. 2 (1981): 206–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/3177522.
[16] Ross, Loretta. “Understanding Reproductive Justice: Transforming the Pro-Choice Movement.” Off Our Backs 36, no. 4 (2006): 14–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20838711.
[17] Vinovskis 1818
[18] Vinovskis 1794
[19] Gunty 837
[20] Vinovskis 1812
[21] Vinovskis 1801
[22] Gunty 835
[23] Petchesky 120
[24] Schoen, Johanna. Choice and Coercion : Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=f8bc89c3-f4c2-36da-ba5d-809e9b26a981.
[25] Olson, Courtney. “Finding a Right to Abortion Coverage: The PPACA, Intersectionality, and Positive Rights.” Seattle University Law Review 41 (2018): 655
[26] Gunty 831
[27] Vinovskis 1811
[28] United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Federal Funding of Abortions, 1977–1979. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0048/004800738repro.pdf
[29] Neurauter, Juliann R. “Pro-lifers Favor Hyde Amendment.” News Journal (Chicago, IL), December 7, 1977. NewspaperArchive.
[30] Schoen 3-11
[31] Vinovskis 1793
[32] Gunty 826
[33] Gunty 825
[34] Gunty 825
[35] Schoen 5
[36] Schoen 5
[37] Gunty 834
[38] Gunty 836
[39] Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464 (1977). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/432/464/
[40] Maher v. Roe
[41] Maher v. Roe
[42] Harris v. McRae
[43] Harris v. McRae
[44] Harris v. McRae
[45] Perry, Rachel. “Abortion Ruling to Hit Hard Locally.” Eureka Times-Standard (Eureka, CA), August 27, 1980. NewspaperArchive.
[46] Goodwin, Michele. “Fetal Protection Laws: Moral Panic and the New Constitutional Battlefront.” California Law Review102, no. 4 (2014): 781–875. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23784354.
[47] Gunty 834
[48] Harris v. McRae
[49] Schoen 147
[50] Gordon 340
[51] Gunty 828
[52] Schoen 225
[53] Schoen 140
[54] Schoen 24
[55] Schoen 5
[56] Schoen 5
[57] Schoen 149
[58] Schoen 32
[59] Vinovskis 1818
[60] Petchesky 216-17
[61] Dubow 162
[62] Dubow 7
[63] Reagan, Ronald. “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation.” The Catholic Lawyer the Catholic Lawyer Volume 30, no. 2 (1986). https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2212&context=tcl.
[64] Dubow 154
[65] Vinovskis 1801
[66] Dubow 165
[67] Vinovskis 1795
[68] Vinovskis 1809
[69] Daley, Steve. “Hyde Remains Constant.” Franklin News-Herald (Franklin, PA), July 14, 1993. NewspaperArchive. https://newspaperarchive.com/franklin-news-herald-jul-14-1993-p-4/.
[70] Schoen 5
[71] Gordon 311-323
[72] Gordon 316
[73] Schoen 52
[74] Gunty 827-829
[75] Schoen 74
[76] Dubow 159
[77] Trisha Cofiell, “Women Protest at Hyde Dinner,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, PA), September 14, 1979, 1, Newspapers.com.
[78] Cofiell 1
[79] Cofiell 1
[80] Schoen 11
[81] Goodwin, Michele 818
[82] Ross, Loretta. “Understanding Reproductive Justice: Transforming the Pro-Choice Movement.” Off Our Backs 36, no. 4 (2006): 14–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20838711.
[83] Schoen 6
[84] Gordon 339
[85] Ross 14-15
[86] Goodwin 785
[87] Ross 14-16
[88] Ross 17
[89] Goodwin 857
[90] Gordon 339
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