Beating Hyde

With new leadership in Congress and the retirement of a certain prolife representative, pro-choice groups are getting excited about the possibility of dismantling a law that has long been a thorn in their side: the Hyde Amendment. They even have a web site which is the work of the National Network of Abortion Funds.

The Hyde Amendment prevents the federal government from paying for the abortions of women on Medicaid except in the cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.

According to the article,

In the three decades since passage of the Hyde Amendment, between 18 and 35 percent of Medicaid-eligible women who would have had abortions if funding had been available instead carried their pregnancies to term, according to Ipas, an abortion rights group in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Safe, legal, rare and paid for?

Stopping tax dollars from being used to pay for abortions has a huge impact on how many abortions are performed in a year. Take Michigan, for example.

1988 was the last year Michigan tax dollars paid for abortions. In that year there were an estimated 217,544 pregnancies, 139,635 live births and 45,438 abortion for Michigan residents. In 1989, tax dollars no longer paid for abortion and there were an estimated 216,449 pregnancies, 148,164 live births and 35,138 abortions for Michigan residents.