Fact Sheet:
Restrictions on Access to Abortions for Low-Income Women

The Hyde Amendment, introduced in 1977, was a law that disallowed federal funds from being spent on abortion procedures except in cases when the pregnancy was deemed to endanger the woman’s life. Medicaid, contributes to health coverage for low-income Americans, including welfare recipients, and disproportionately serves women and minorities. Today the law permits Medicaid coverage for abortions in instances of rape and incest in all but two states. Sixteen states provide funds for low-income women to receive abortions when such action is deemed “medically necessary” for the woman’s health, but interpretation and enforcement vary widely.

How welfare reform limits a woman’s right to choose

Under current welfare law, states that reduce the ratio of out-of-wedlock births to all births while simultaneously reducing numbers of abortions performed receive bonuses upwards of $25 million. Yet, 23 states also have a “Child Exclusion” or “Family Cap” policy refusing to provide benefits for children born to women dependent on welfare. The result of such policies is a double bind in which no choice a low-income woman makes about her reproductive health is financially supported by the government.

The impact of abortion restriction on low-income women

In 1979, just 2 years after the initial passage of the Hyde Amendment, the Center for Disease Control attributed at least four deaths from illegal or self-induced abortions to a lack of Medicaid funding for the safe and legal procedure¹. When Medicaid funds abortions, aid recipients are 3.9 times as likely to have abortions as those who aren’t eligible for funding. When states disallow Medicaid funding for abortions, women with Medicaid benefits are only 1.6 times as likely to have an abortion as those without coverage¹. Of all women who were on Medicaid and obtained abortions in 1982, 44% paid for the procedure with money designated for essential living expenses². On average, women with Medicaid wait 2-3 weeks longer to obtain an abortion than women without Medicaid coverage¹.

Keep abortion safe, legal and available for ALL women


1. Alan Guttmacher Institute’s “Rights Without Access: Revisiting Public Funding of Abortion for Poor Women,” by Heather Boonstra and Adam Sonfield, April 2000, www.agi-usa.org/pubs/ib_funding00.html

2. Stanley K. Henshaw and Lynn S. Wallisch, “The Medicaid Cutoff and Abortion Service for the Poor,” 16 Family Planning Perspectives 170, 178-79 (1984).

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