Congressman Henry Hyde served his Illinois district from 1975 until his death in 2007. Hyde was known as a conservative Republican, leading efforts to impeach President Bill Clinton in 1998. It was Hyde who carried the Articles of Impeachment from the House to the U.S. Senate chamber. Henry Hyde, however, will best be remembered for his unrelenting fight to limit federal funding of abortion, accomplished through the 1976 Hyde Amendment.
Scope of the Hyde Amendment
Since 1976, Hyde Amendment language has been incorporated into every annual appropriations legislation. That language stipulated that, “…none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated under this Act, shall be expended for any abortion.” Consistently, the only exemption made by the act concerned the life of the mother. Since 1993, however, Congress added sections governing cases of rape and incest. Hyde opposed such exemptions, claiming that women would lie about their sexual histories in order to secure abortions.
The focus of the Hyde Amendment involved federal Medicaid reimbursements to the various states. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Amendment in the case Harris v McRae, maintaining that withholding reimbursement funds to states that permitted abortions under Medicaid was a legal federal prerogative.
- Tosh Legalize It
- Arizona Real Estate Legal
- Legal Documents Format
- Di Legale Milano Studio Traverso
- Regional Housing Legal Services
Sign Up For E-News. Home; Register; Login; Contact; Search this site:
