Hyde Amendment

Floor Speech

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Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to the Hyde amendment, which, for too long, has been denying women their constitutional right to access safe and legal abortion.

Mr. Speaker, restrictions on abortion do not make it go away. They make it less safe. For the last 40 years, the Hyde amendment has created an often insurmountable barrier for women across the country struggling to access affordable health care because it prohibits Medicaid coverage for abortion.

It disproportionately affects low-income women: young women, immigrant women, women of color, women in rural communities. In fact, more than half the women who have their rights restricted by the Hyde amendment are women of color.

It is long past time to do away with this harmful provision, which has been expanded over the years to deny coverage to Federal employees and their dependents, our military servicemembers, Native Americans, and even Peace Corps volunteers.

Restricting Medicaid coverage of abortion means that about one in four low-income women carry to term an unwanted pregnancy. That is not a decision the government should make for women. There are many things that Congress should be doing, but one thing we should not be doing is interfering with a woman's constitutional right.

So what should we be doing? We should be supporting policies that prevent unwanted pregnancies, like funding Planned Parenthood; and we should also pass the EACH Woman Act to lift the coverage ban that stands in the way of too many women who have the right to make their own decisions about what is best for them and their families.

Two generations of women have been affected by the Hyde amendment over the last four decades. Let's end this policy and let each woman be able to do what is best for herself and her family.

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