Henry Hyde’s Dark Legacy

Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) had a remarkably long career of 37 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, garnering his fair share of damnation and praise, celebration and scandal.  He was a Republican from Chicago who kept getting reelected, which was an achievement unto itself. He led the calls for President Clinton’s impeachment trial, although it was later revealed that he himself had at least one extramarital affair.

History, however, will remember Henry Hyde for a singular amendment that he attached to an appropriations bill in 1976, which barred federal funds from being used to pay for abortion services for Medicaid recipients, except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the woman was endangered.  Hyde was staunchly anti-abortion- this amendment was his way of trying to limit access to the newly-legal procedure by closing off the federal purse strings for it.  The law was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1980, and has been attached to every appropriations bill for Medicaid since.

The Hyde Amendment was the first major victory for the anti-abortion movement, and this new tactic became a popular approach across government.  The Hyde language no longer covers just Medicaid recipients, but also those covered by Indian Health Services, the Tricare program for active duty and retired military, and every single health insurance plan offered to federal employees, just to name a few.  Hyde was even the inspiration for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the recent Affordable Care Act, which further reiterates that anyone who receives health insurance from the federal government will be prevented from seeking abortion care except in the most dire of circumstances.

It is perhaps the ultimate mark of a patriarchal government to control so completely the reproductive lives of those who are most directly connected to it, be they a Medicaid recipient or a front line soldier.  What is perhaps the most shocking thing is the complacency with which the average American faces this fact.  The majority of the individuals involved here- the poor, minorities, government employees, Native Americans- are part of groups so vilified by the media and public sentiment that it took many mainstream reproductive rights organizations until the arrival of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, with its much broader reach, to raise the issue on a national level and tap into public outrage.

Still, the fight against Hyde is not a popular one.  There is a sense that those who rely so much on the government should be subjected to its rules, as though they were living under the roof of a strict parent.  Smaller organizations such as Sistersong, INCITE! and the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) continue to press for the repeal of Hyde as part of a larger reproductive justice framework, and they are starting to gain some traction among younger activists.  In April, affiliates of NNAF raised almost half a million dollars through dozens of popular fundraisers to provide direct assistance to women who cannot afford abortion services because their insurance (in whatever form) does not cover abortion services.  The rising need seems to be being greeted by a rising tide of activism.

Henry Hyde left us an unfortunate legacy that far too many have ignored. Here’s hoping there’s still time to reverse it.