FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Alexa Garcia-Ditta, alexa@conwaystrategic.com, 512-861-8079
Washington D.C.—Today, 44 reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations released the following statement in response to the Labor Health and Human Services Appropriations bill that includes the Hyde Amendment:
“Today, the pro-choice majority in the U.S. House of Representatives chose to introduce its annual spending bills with the Hyde Amendment included. We say: enough is enough. For 43 years, the Hyde Amendment has banned abortion coverage for people enrolled in Medicaid health insurance. It is long past time for our elected officials to put an end to abortion coverage bans once and for all, so no one is denied abortion care because of how much money they make or how they get their health insurance.
Bans on abortion coverage, like the Hyde Amendment, have long disproportionately impacted Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities and the time has come to end these bans. We need health care that works for everyone. There is too much at stake to stand in the way of someone’s decision of whether to become a parent. Anti-abortion politicians and the Trump administration are working to push abortion care out of reach entirely, which most harms women of color.
BIPOC communities have long bore the brunt of the racial and economic inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The threats to reproductive health care, including abortion, have never been more present, as our nation faces an unprecedented public health emergency while also experiencing a long-needed reckoning on how systemic racism permeates our society and institutions.
Our movement is strong and the public is with us. Recent polling shows that the majority of national voters support Medicaid coverage for abortion, even more so in battleground districts. 84% of women of color voters say it’s extremely important that candidates support women making their own decisions about their reproductive health.
This Congress has chosen to ignore what women of color have been saying for decades, and what the majority of national voters now agree with – however we feel about abortion, no one should be denied access to it just because they are struggling to make ends meet.”
The following organizations have signed on to the statement:
All* Above All
Abortion Care Network
Advocates for Youth
American Civil Liberties Union
Black Women’s Health Imperative
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law
CHOICES.
FFRF
Global Justice Center
Guttmacher Institute
Ibis Reproductive Health
If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice
In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda
Ipas
Jane’s Due Process
Jewish Women International
NARAL Pro-Choice America
NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina
NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Council of Jewish Women
National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association
National Health Law Program
National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH)
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice
National Network of Abortion Funds
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Women’s Health Network
National Women’s Law Center
Northwest Abortion Access Fund
Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health
PAI
People For the American Way
Physicians for Reproductive Health
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Population Institute
Power to Decide
Pregnancy Options Wisconsin: Education, Resources & Support
Progress Florida
URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity
Women’s Medical Fund (Wisconsin)
Yellowhammer Fund