Hyde Amendment

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This article is about the 1976 abortion-funding amendment. For the unrelated 1997 amendment, see Hyde Amendment (1997).

The Hyde Amendment is a provision barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortions for low-income women, first passed by the United States Congress in 1976. It was so named because its chief sponsor was Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois. The measure was introduced in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, and represented the first major legislative success by abortion opponents in the United States.

The amendment effectively ended the provision of abortions for low-income women across the United States through Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for poor people. As a rider attached to the yearly appropriations bill for Medicaid, it occasioned intense debate in Congress each time that it came up for renewal. The original measure made no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother, provoking an outcry from women's rights advocates. As a result, beginning in 1977 language was added to provide for such circumstances; however, the exact wording has varied from one year to the next, subject to the outcome of Congressional bargaining on the issue.

The cutoff of federal Medicaid funds prompted some states to provide public funding for abortion services from their own coffers. Over time the number of states doing so has gradually expanded, either through legislation or consequent to judicial rulings mandating equal access to health care for low-income women. Nonetheless, as of 2007, only 17 of the 50 states provide such funding, and 13 of these are required by court order to do so.

The Hyde Amendment inspired the passage of other similar provisions extending the ban on funding of abortions to a number of other federal health care programs. Consequently, those federal government employees who wish to have abortions must pay for them "out-of-pocket". In addition, abortion services are not provided for U.S. military personnel and their families, Peace Corps volunteers, Indian Health Service clients, or federal prisoners.