The Hyde Amendment at 40: Constitutional Rights Are for Everyone … Who Can Afford Them

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Maxine Galloway

The debate around the Hyde Amendment has been squarely focused around abortion. Rightly so. The procedure is still a delicate topic, despite approximately 2 out of 5 women getting an abortion in their lifetimes. But the Hyde Amendment has another angle that no one is talking about. Do poor women actually have a constitutional right when they cannot afford access to that right?

The Hyde Amendment turns 40 this Friday. So what’s the Hyde Amendment?

In 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided that individuals have a right to privacy under the 14th Amendment. Roe v. Wade, along with several other cases, saw SCOTUS reasoning that a right to privacy extends to a woman’s right to an abortion. Women who lived through centuries of dangerous back-alley abortions, botched abortions, and dangerous abortifacient drugs saw Roe as a pivotal case for women’s rights.

Three years after Roe v. Wade — 40 years ago this Friday, on September 30, 1976 — Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois attached a rider to the annual appropriations bill. The Hyde Amendment forbade federal funds to be used for abortions. This rider has been renewed yearly, but never officially added to the bill itself. Years later, two more provisions were added to the Hyde Amendment to allow exceptions for the health of the mother and cases of rape or incest. The effect of this provision meant that thousands of poor women would no longer be able to afford an abortion. Their access to a constitutional right had been considerably decreased. Continue reading →

Roe v. Wade: Texas Then and Now

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Anne Hopkins

“Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the Court: It’s an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they are going to have the last word.”

Supreme Court, 1973

Thus Jay Floyd, Texas assistant attorney general, opened his December 1971 oral argument in Roe v. Wade, as his adversary attorneys Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee sat nearby (no doubt dumbfounded) after Weddington had presented their argument for women’s abortion rights.

Wisely, the Texas reargument in 1972 opened with no attempt at humor. (When Roe was first argued, the Supreme Court consisted of only seven justices. Because the decision would be so historic, the Supreme Court decided to hear arguments a second time when all nine justices were in place the following year.) Then, on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court decided that a woman’s right to an abortion was constitutionally protected and the 1854 Texas law at issue was struck down, along with abortion laws in 45 other states. (The Texas gentleman was right: The Texas ladies did have the last word.)

What will the Supreme Court bring us this year? “Don’t Mess with Texas” or “Don’t Mess with Women”?

So, as we approach the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade this Friday, let’s mosey down memory lane. How did we get to that landmark decision, and where might we be going this year with a new Texas case testing abortion rights, Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole?

Throughout history, abortion has been a common practice. At the time of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, abortion was legal in all states. Prior to the mid-1800s legal scholars were not proposing abortion laws, nor advocating “personhood” of an unborn child, nor asserting abortion control on medical safety or any other grounds. Continue reading →

Judging Sex: From Bowers v. Hardwick to Lawrence v. Texas

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Tori

Tyron Garner, left, and John Lawrence, right, react to the decision in Lawrence v. Texas. Image: Metro Weekly

This week, two related Supreme Court cases both mark anniversaries.

Twenty-seven years ago (and yes, I totally had to get out my calculator for that one), on June 30, 1986, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick. In it, the court concluded, “The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.” That is, even though previous courts had established and upheld a constitutional right to privacy when it came to some matters of sexual health — such as in Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade — states were free to enact laws that made it illegal for people to engage in “homosexual sodomy” — basically, outlawing same-sex couples from having oral or anal sex.

June 26 is the 10th anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down sodomy laws nationwide.

On its way to the Supreme Court, the relevant appeals court held that laws that discriminated against same-sex couples’ consensual sexual activities violated an individual’s “fundamental rights because his homosexual activity is a private and intimate association that is beyond the reach of state regulation by reason of the Ninth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” However, other courts of appeals had issued rulings in conflict with that sentiment. When the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Bowers, it explicitly rejected that same-sex sexual activity fell under the same constitutional right to privacy:

No connection between family, marriage, or procreation, on the one hand, and homosexual activity, on the other, has been demonstrated, either by the Court of Appeals or by respondent. Moreover, any claim that these cases nevertheless stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable.

However, another date in June — the 26th, to be specific — marks the 10th anniversary of a different case involving gay rights: Lawrence v. Texas. That ruling reversed and overturned the court’s decision in Bowers.

So in those 17 years between Bowers and Lawrence, what changed? Continue reading →