Hyde Saves Lives

For nearly 50 years, the Hyde Amendment has protected millions of unborn babies from abortion and ensured that Americans are not forced to pay for abortion on demand with their tax dollars. After the Dobbs Supreme Court victory confirmed there is no constitutional right to abortion, this remains vitally important.

The process of keeping taxpayers out of the abortion business began with the first Hyde Amendment (which applied to Medicaid) and has since been applied to other federal programs through additional amendments called Helms, Weldon, Dornan, and more.

But now the Hyde Amendment and those like it are under attack.

Democrats, who supported these measures for decades in Congress, now want to repeal Hyde and similar amendments. Your voice is urgently needed.

What is the Hyde Amendment?

The Hyde Amendment is language (a “limitation of funds amendment,” or “rider”) that gets added to spending bills in order to stop the use of taxpayer funds for abortion or for health insurance coverage that includes abortion – it protects Americans from being complicit in the brutality of abortion through their taxpayer dollars. The first Hyde Amendment applied to Medicaid, but additional amendments have since been offered to disentangle taxpayer funding for abortion from other federal funding streams.

First introduced in 1976 spending bills by Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, the amendment stopped federal funds from paying for abortion on demand after the Roe v. Wade decision. He believed this amendment aligned with other historic legislation to defend unalienable rights.

“The Hyde Amendment – the first amendment to protect pro-life taxpayers.”

As a limitation of funds amendment, the Hyde Amendment is not a permanent law. It must be—and has been—approved by vote with bipartisan support in every federal funding bill since 1976. Amidst legal challenges in its early years, the Hyde Amendment was affirmed as constitutional in 1980 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae.

The Hyde Amendment and Hyde family of amendments do two vital things:

• Reduce abortions, which saves lives. Over the past four decades, the original Hyde Amendment alone has prevented over two million abortions. Over 2.6 million people are alive today because of this life-saving policy.
• Ensure tax dollars do not support or enable the abortion industry at home or abroad. This bright line of separation is essential.

The Hyde Amendment contains exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

Constitutionality of Hyde Impact of Hyde

The Hyde Family

The original Hyde Amendment is not the only measure designed to save lives and protect pro-life Americans from forced complicity with the injustice of abortion. Below is a non-exhaustive family tree of the amendments and measures that make up the Hyde family: