On this day 36 years ago, the Supreme Court made a landmark decision protecting the right to choose for all American women, and that right has been challenged and threatened ever since. Here’s hoping that the new administration that began on Tuesday will keep our best interests at heart, and will begin to undo the eroding of our reproductive freedoms that has occurred over the last three and a half decades. One important way Obama’s team can do this, is to strike restrictions on publicly funded abortions that were put in place by the Hyde Amendment. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights :
‘For 36 years, women in this country have had the right to obtain safe, legal abortion. But since 1977 when Hyde was first enacted, low-income women have been deprived of that right by anti-choice politicians intent on doing away with a woman’s access to abortion altogether. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortion except under extremely limited circumstances. As a result, a woman who relies on Medicaid cannot get an abortion in most circumstances – even if her health is jeopardized by her pregnancy – unless she is able to cover the entire cost out-of-pocket. Similar restrictions have been imposed on women who rely on the health benefits provided to federal employees, military personnel and their dependents, women served by the Indian Health Service, Peace Corps volunteers, Medicare enrollees, women in federal prisons, and low-income women in the District of Columbia. Under Hyde, a poor woman must often delay obtaining a medically necessary abortion while she tries to raise the funds. The longer she waits, the more it costs and the greater the risks to her health.’
Lets email our new Prez at [email protected] and ask him to not just maintain the status quo in women’s health, but to start to undo some of the damage that has already been done.
