Hyde Amendment

Within the U.S., the Hyde Amendment essentially bars federal abortion coverage through Medicaid. Proposed as a response to Roe v. Wade, Hyde is known for its devastating impact on millions of low-income women and families.

Republican Efforts to Defund Planned Parenthood Would Increase Budget Deficit $300 Million

The House Rules Committee is set to meet at 1 a.m. ET on May 21 to discuss Medicaid funding cuts that would essentially defund Planned Parenthood. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that blocking patients from using their Medicaid insurance plan to obtain sexual and reproductive healthcare at Planned Parenthood clinics would increase the deficit by $300 million.

“The fact of the matter is, if Republicans get their way—if they succeed in shutting the doors of Planned Parenthood clinics across the country—millions of women will have nowhere else to turn,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “After all, two-thirds of Planned Parenthood health centers are in rural and medically underserved areas—places where there’s already a shortage of clinics and healthcare professionals. And for a lot of these patients, Planned Parenthood is literally the only provider in reach and in budget. They literally can’t afford to lose this care.”

First They Came for Kilmar

After World War II, German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller famously said, “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.” We are watching this happen in real time with the Trump administration.

Donald Trump has targeted immigrants, such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, with illegal deportation; then he came after workers’ rights, with cuts to overtime pay and rolling back rights to unionize; then he came for the hungry, with cuts to food programs and Medicaid; then he came for the low-income children, with the elimination of Head Start child care; then he came for the sick, with cuts to funding for medical research; then he came for women, with cuts to reproductive healthcare and funding for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis hotlines; then he came for disabled and elderly people, with cuts to Social Security and Medicare—and so much more.

Trump is boundary testing. If you give him an inch, he will take it all, until he has obliterated all resistance—and our democracy.

South Carolina Wants to Block Medicaid Patients From Planned Parenthood. Will SCOTUS Let It?

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a case that could determine whether Medicaid patients have the right to sue when states deny them access to qualified healthcare providers like Planned Parenthood.

While the legal question is narrow, a ruling in favor of South Carolina could embolden other states to cut off Medicaid funding for reproductive healthcare, disproportionately impacting low-income patients and people of color.

Medicaid Insures Half of U.S. Children. ‘Pro-Life’ Republicans Are Trying to Cut the Entire Program.

Republicans’ proposed Medicaid cuts would strip healthcare from millions, including half of U.S. children, one in five Americans, and 40 percent of all pregnant women.

With so much at stake for America’s women and families, representatives in Congress should be working to strengthen and expand Medicaid and the coverage it provides, rather than decimate a program that touches the lives of over two-thirds of this country. The fact that these cuts are even proposed, let alone have passed, is a sign that we are in an unprecedented moment of extremism.

Abortion Funds in Pennsylvania, N.Y. and N.J. Are ‘Moving Millions of Dollars to Get People Basic Healthcare’

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This piece, based on three funds in the Northeast, is the fourth in a series of articles spotlighting interviews with fund representatives across the U.S.

We interviewed representatives from the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF), New Jersey Abortion Access Fund (NJAAF) and Abortion Liberation Fund of Pennsylvania (ALF-PA). Activists at each of these funds noted the delicate balance between supporting abortion seekers from their home states and helping the influx of folks traveling to “blue states” for abortion care.

How Project 2025 Seeks to Obliterate Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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Project 2025 promotes a presidential agenda that rolls back civil and human rights and implements extremist conservative policies across every federal department and agency. Its sweeping far-right policy framework, by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, includes numerous attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights. 

This fact sheet enumerates some of the agenda’s most serious threats to sexual and reproductive health and describes potential effects.

As President, Harris Could Not Easily Make Roe v. Wade Federal Law—But She Could Still Make It Easier to Get an Abortion

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There is much that a potential Harris administration and Congress could do to offset the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling.

Congress could amend existing federal laws—starting with repealing the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal money from being used to fund abortions, or the Comstock Act, a Victorian law which some judges have interpreted as prohibiting the mailing of abortion pills. Congress could also enact legislation that protects the right to interstate abortion travel. Or Harris could ask Congress to pass a law that would guarantee the same kind of access to mifepristone that the FDA currently allows.

New York Voters Overwhelmingly Pass ERA Ballot Measure ‘to Protect Abortion and Reproductive Freedom’

A New York ballot measure to create constitutional protections for abortion and create explicit protections for people who experience discrimination, passed overwhelmingly on Tuesday.

Proposal 1, the first U.S. constitutional amendment of its kind, will establish comprehensive safeguards against discrimination and explicitly protect reproductive rights, including the right to abortion for state residents. According to New Yorkers for Equal Rights (NYER), a broad coalition of more than 300 diverse groups that support the initiative, the effort is different from other equal rights amendments because it includes protections for reproductive rights.

NYER campaign director Sasha N. Ahuja spoke to Ms. two months before Election Day: “We have to set the path for other states to pursue equality and provide the strongest possible protections in their constitutions.”

Democratic Party Platform Centers Women’s Rights

At the DNC in Chicago, party leaders approved the 2024 Democratic party platform Monday evening, promising to protect and strengthen women’s rights. The 91-page document is a stark contrast to the Republican platform, which promises to continue the dismantling of women’s rights started during Donald Trump’s first term in office.

Here are some of the parts of the Democratic party platform focused on women’s rights—including restoring abortion access, protecting contraception access, and making the Equal Rights Amendment the law of the land.