Ibis Reproductive Health

Documenting barriers to poor women’s access to abortion in the US

In 1976, Congress passed the federal Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal Medicaid funding for abortions except for women whose pregnancies are due to rape or incest, or are life endangering. Currently, 32 state Medicaid programs and the District of Columbia fund abortions only in these cases, and in South Dakota public funding only covers abortions in cases of life endangerment. Anecdotal and circumstantial evidence suggests that even in these cases it is difficult, if not impossible, to access Medicaid funding to cover abortions, despite the fact that these conditions are exempted from the Hyde Amendment ban on federal abortion funding and coverage is legally mandated.

In this qualitative and quantitative study, we are interviewing abortion providers in several US states in which Medicaid covers the cost of abortion in cases exempted from the Hyde Amendment prohibitions. We seek to determine how frequently providers have been able to successfully obtain Medicaid funds to cover termination costs, and to document their experiences, challenges, and successes with attempting to obtain Medicaid coverage for abortion.

References:

Boonstra H. The Heart of the Matter: Public Funding of Abortion for Poor Women in the US. Guttmacher Policy Review Winter 2007; 10(1). http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/10/1/gpr100112.html
State Policies in Brief: State Funding of Abortion under Medicaid. Guttmacher Institute, 2008. http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_SFAM.pdf

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