NEWS

Democrats take aim at ban on public funding of abortion

Chris Casteel
Cole

The U.S. House may soon take a vote on whether to strike a longstanding ban on public funding of abortions, as some Democrats, including leading presidential candidates, have criticized the policy as discriminating against poor women.

“I’m in favor of making sure women have the ability to make their own health and reproductive decisions, and I think that includes reproductive issues like education, birth control, other things like that,” U.S. Rep. Kendra Horn, D-Oklahoma City, said Saturday when asked about efforts to end the ban.

“The concern with (the Hyde Amendment) is it limits care providers’ ability to provide the whole suite of care.”

The so-called Hyde Amendment bars funding of abortion through Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, military health care or other federal programs, except in the cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.

First approved in 1977, the policy is renewed each year through appropriations bills.

“That’s just been an automatic,” no matter which party controlled the White House or Congress, U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas said.

Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, called for ending the ban on public funding, as did the Democrats’ national platform that year.

Leading Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination have also called for ending the policy, with former Vice President Joe Biden reversing his long support or the Hyde Amendment.

“If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” Biden said in a recent tweet.

Despite the growing sentiment against the policy, Democrats included the Hyde Amendment in the spending bill for the Health and Human Services Department, bowing to the reality that the GOP-controlled Senate and President Donald Trump support the policy.

Rep. Rose DeLauro, a New York Democrat who helped craft the bill, said in April, that Democrats “know the power of the White House and that this president will reject a repeal of the Hyde amendment. That is why this bill maintains current law with regards to the Hyde Amendment.”

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, the top Republican on the panel that wrote the spending bill, said, “Democratic members of the Appropriations Committee who would like to get rid of the Hyde Amendment long term left it in the bill because they knew they couldn’t get this bill through the Senate and the president would never sign it.”

As the spending bill goes to the full House this week, some Democratic members want to take another shot at the policy and have offered an amendment to strip it from the bill.

Cole is also the top Republican on the Rules Committee, which was set Monday to consider whether to allow an amendment stripping the Hyde Amendment.

If the Hyde Amendment is stripped and Democrats insist on that position, it will shut down the appropriations process this year, Cole said.

“I understand this is an issue inside the Democratic primary, but it would absolutely destroy the normal functioning of appropriations in Washington, D.C.,” Cole said.

“We made this grand compromise many years ago — this is now a 40-year-old amendment. The fact that we would try to upset it would just create chaos.”

Oklahoma Republicans in Congress support the Hyde Amendment.

Horn said Saturday she hadn’t read the proposed amendment to repeal the Hyde Amendment.

“We don’t have public funding of abortion, but I think we’ve got to ensure that access to services are still available for individuals that need them and that we’re following science and evidence-based care,” Horn said.

“I’m going to come down on the side of ensuring we’re expanding access to reproductive health services, including birth control, evidence-based education. I think those are the ways that we reduce unintended pregnancies and thus reduce the need for abortion. And I think that’s really important.”