DeGette and 100+ Lawmakers Urging Trump to Abandon the Hyde Amendment

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO) and more than 100 other House Democrats joined forces to call on President-Elect Donald Trump to abandon the ban on women’s reproductive health choices known as the Hyde Amendment and to remove related funding constraints.

The ban, which anti-choice members of Congress have inserted into annual spending legislation for four decades, prohibits federal funds in Medicaid and other health programs from being used for abortion. This restriction on millions of women’s health care has predominantly hurt the under-privileged.

In a letter to the president-elect, the 108 legislators said, “Every person should be treated with dignity, compassion and respect – and that includes upholding a woman’s right to make her own decisions about whether to end a pregnancy.”

During the campaign, Trump pledged in a letter to an anti-choice group that he would make the Hyde Amendment law. The lawmakers asked him to forego that pledge and to “demonstrate your commitment to being a President for all people in the United States by eliminating the Hyde Amendment, as well as related abortion coverage and care restrictions, from your Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Budget request.”

“We urge you to begin your presidency with a clear and bold statement that abortion coverage bans have no place in our public policy,” they wrote. “This will send a strong message to Congress and the country that everyone should be able to decide when and how to start a family—no matter their income, the type of insurance they have, or where they live.”

In an op-ed and other public statements earlier this year, DeGette reaffirmed her commitment to passing the EACH Woman (Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance) Act, which would prohibit re-introduction of the Hyde Amendment. She intends to co-sponsor it again when the new Congress meets next year.