Accessing Choice
34 years after Roe, barriers remain for low-income women.
By Miriam Pérez, Swarthmore College
Tuesday January 16, 2007
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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While I am pro-choice. I believe that those on the pro-life side have a compelling arugment that people should not have their taxes used to fund something they morally oppose.
Just as I oppose mine for funding this war.
— Jane - Jan 16, 12:33 PM - #Jane,
I can’t agree with that assement we as taxpayers may not agree with a lot of things that the government uses our money for some are necessary such as roads, utlities etc but our money goes to them regardless.
Abortion is a safe and legal medical procedure and therefore should be covered for low income women and for military personnel (which it is not).
I don’t believe we should be in the buisness of legislating morality. If people don’t believe that abortion is right, then that is their perrogative.
Go and adopt a child, or mentor a child, or volunteer at an emergency pregnancy clinic just don’t preach to me what I should be doing with my body.
If we were really serious about reducing the rate of abortions in this country and abroad, we would get serious about comprhensive sex education and contraceptive use.
We really need to talk to young men and women not just about the physical changes that are occurring in them but about the physicological ones too.
I mean really talk about sexuallity and yes contraceptives and make them readily available to people.
Just my two cents
— Robin - Jan 18, 04:48 PM - #According to Centers for Disease Control statistics, the death rate among women age fifteen to thirty-four, the group that today accounts for 94 percent of all abortions in the US, saw no significant change in the years immediately after Roe.
The great irony in the culture of choice is that it actually promotes a malnourished kind of choice. Classically, it was understood that will—that is, the choosing part of the person—had before it a variety of options and influencing passions; if the will was to maintain its freedom, it would choose among these with the guidance of intellect. A culture that truly honors freedom and the act of choosing, then, would be one that honors reason, the faculty that sorts through the various options and influencing passions, looking for possible external or internal coercive factors, and so on. Our contemporary version of choice, however, eclipses the governing role of reason, and so allows our passions to dictate the choices we make
Abortion statistics reveal that this is the case. Most women have abortions out of fear, not as a reasoned response to the crisis pregnancy: they fear that they cannot afford to care for the child, that they are too immature, that they will be ridiculed, that they will be abandoned by their family or by the baby’s father. A culture that values the human person in the fullness of her dignity—would be one that comes to the assistance of the pregnant woman in crisis, helping her to see beyond her fears, to know of the help available to her, and to understand the nature of that which grows inside her. Such a culture would expect all educated people to have some understanding of fetal development and to value the dignity of the most innocent and helpless bringing in the human race.
There are now 1.3 million surgical abortions per year in the US. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood) reports that women have abortions for two primary reasons: lack of financial resources and lack of emotional support.
Excerpted from the Cost of Choice by Erika Bachiochi. 2004
Maybe we should start by looking at the demographic being aborted before we debate access. I didn’t know an operation could be so cheap.
— givingtree - Jan 19, 12:07 PM - #remember planned parenthood! they just gave my roommate 300 dollars worth of plan B and bc and she doesn’t have insurance! I paid 50 bucks for the OTC Plan B! But it is at the pharmacy so remember it is OTC now !
— cassandra - Jan 19, 02:04 PM - #Thank you, Miriam, for reminding us that the promise of Roe is unfulfilled while laws like the Hyde Amendment are in effect. Young people who want to help expand economic access to abortion can join the Hyde – 30 Years is Enough! Campaign www.hyde30years.nnaf.org, an on-going effort to advocate for full public funding for abortion, in the context of comprehensive health care for all. The campaign is coordinated by the National Network of Abortion Funds, a coalition of over 100 grassroots groups across the country that raise money to help women cover the cost of abortion. The Network also fights for policies that will eliminate economic barriers to abortion and allow all women and their families full health care and a decent life. Visit www.nnaf.org if you or someone you know needs help paying for an abortion, or if you’d like to support the work of abortion funds.
— Sarah - Jan 30, 02:18 PM - #