For more than 40 years, the Hyde Amendment stood as one of the few bi-partisan compromises between Democrats and Republicans on abortion. In 1977, it was agreed that no government money would be used to pay for elective abortion, including Medicaid, Medicare and Children’s Health benefits. Generally speaking, “legal” Americans like the idea of having a say in the spending of “their money”.
June 21, 2020, Speaker Pelosi used her House majority to block a vote on the annual bill, which would include the Hyde Amendment. August 28, 2020, Pelosi led her Democrats into challenging the, previously, agreed-upon status quo of the Hyde Amendment. She claimed that it was full of Republicans’ “systemic racism, which hurts women, especially women of color and of low income”. With Pelosi, Schumer and Biden, every time a nay vote is necessary, it’s because the bill is Republican racism, sexism, anti-transism [sic] and/or anti-climate change.”
At a press conference on Nov. 18, 2021, Pelosi assured reporters that the Hyde Amendment was not in the bill.
