Accessing Choice

34 years after Roe, barriers remain for low-income women.

By Miriam Pérez, Swarthmore College

January is the month when women’s organizations across the country commemorate the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that overturned all state and federal bans on abortion in the United States. The Roe anniversary is a big deal in the reproductive rights world—it’s when we celebrate the decision that allowed millions of women to take control of their destinies.

Roe v. Wade was supposed to free women from resorting to underground networks of abortion providers and putting themselves at risk of death from unsafe, illegal procedures. Three decades later, many of us do have much to celebrate. Women of a certain socioeconomic status, or living in the right parts of the country, can access abortion without significant barriers. There are the challenges of parental consent, mandatory waiting periods, and clinic violence that affect everyone—but on the whole, the average upper-middle-class woman can access the reproductive health care she needs. College students in particular can take comfort in the fact that they have student health clinics that are overwhelmingly supportive and provide reproductive health services at low-cost.

So, for many of us, Roe v. Wade still stands. But unfortunately, this is not the reality for a large group of American women. For them, Roe v. Wade may as well have been overturned with the passage of the Hyde Amendment three years later. In 1976, Congress voted to prevent using federal funds for abortions. That law is still in effect today. Poor women who rely on federal Medicaid assistance for their health care are expected to fend for themselves financially if they need an abortion, which women pay an average of $372 for.

For low-income women—and a disproportionate number of women of color—the pre-Roe days of unsafe abortions are not over. In 1977, Rosie Jimenez, a young Latina mother and student working toward her college degree, became the first known woman to die from a back alley abortion after the Roe decision; she was a Medicaid recipient who could not afford the abortion she needed. Rosie may have been the first, but she was definitely not the last woman whose “right to choose” was effectively removed by her economic situation and the Hyde Amendment.

In the 1980 Supreme Court case upholding the Hyde Amendment, Harris v. McRae, the Court ignored concerns about equal access, ruling that regardless of whether or not a woman has a privacy right to abortion, it doesn’t mean she has a constitutional entitlement to funds for the full range of protected choices.

But there is no reason that an abortion procedure should not be seen as a necessary part of any person’s health care, and treated as such, for all women, regardless of socioeconomic status. We have a responsibility as part of our pursuit of reproductive justice to constantly think of the needs of those who are not at the decision-making table—those who are the most vulnerable.

The Hyde Amendment has passed every single year since 1977 as part of the federal appropriations budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. We need to make our legislators know that we’re paying attention to the fine print, and we care how they vote.

Student reproductive justice activists should be fighting the Hyde Amendment just as adamantly as we fight parental consent laws, abstinence-only education, and restrictions on contraceptive access. College students who are privileged and have ready access to health services have a special responsibility to push the reproductive freedom movement to fight for equitable access for all women. It is unacceptable that after all the reproductive rights battles we have fought, the women who most need access to these services are prevented from truly having a right to choose.

So when you celebrate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade this January, remember who has been left behind and how much farther we still have to go. Representative Henry Hyde, author of the Hyde Amendment, retired in 2006, so let’s all make a New Year’s resolution to retire his legacy with him.

 
Miriam Pérez is the advocacy associate at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health in New York City. She graduated from Swarthmore College last year.

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