Activists Unite to Remember Rosie and Make Hyde History

Rosie Jimenez died on the morning of October 3^rd 1977, due to complications from an unsafe abortion, because she could not afford safe, legal care. She left behind her five-year-old daughter and her hope for a fulfilling life as a teacher. In the 60s and 70s, stories like Rosie’s gave a sense of urgency to the feminist protests for abortion rights. Yet, Rosie Jimenez died four years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade recognized the constitutional right to end a pregnancy. Her death was more than a tragic accident. Instead, Rosie died because she was denied access to a safe, legal abortion by the Hyde Amendment.

Passed in 1976 (and every year subsequent), the Hyde Amendment denies public insurance coverage for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the mother’s health. As a Medicaid enrollee, Rosie was denied abortion coverage because of the source of her health insurance. But on the 39^th anniversary of this deadly amendment, a bill has been introduced in Congress that has the potential to guarantee the constitutional right to abortion to women like Rosie.

The Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Woman Act would help make the constitutional right guaranteed by Roe v. Wade a reality. The EACH Woman Act, introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Congresswoman Diana Degette (D-CO), now boasts over 100congressional co-sponsors and would lift the bans that deny abortion coverage to low-income women.

Thanks to the EACH Woman Act, the one in three women  who have an abortion in their lifetime wouldn’t have to factor the source of their insurance into their important decision about their reproductive health, be forced to pay the $350-$1000 cost out of pocket, or forgo the procedure entirely. The EACH Act would also remove restrictions states have placed on the private insurance market so women who purchase insurance individually or through their employer won’t have to worry about politicians interfering with the kinds of services companies can and cannot offer.

However, the promise of the EACH Woman Act has yet to become reality.

The Hyde Amendment has created a patchwork of rights across America. One in seven women aged 19-64 who are enrolled in Medicaid as well as millions more people whose health insurance is provided by the federal government are denied abortion coverage simply because of the source of their health insurance. The Hyde Amendment, coupled with the myriad restrictions passed in 25 states that interfere with abortion as a covered health service in the private insurance market, has made the right to an abortion, as guaranteed by the Supreme Court 42 years ago, almost non-existent for poor, young women.

Rosie’s story is emblematic of the disproportionate impact the Hyde Amendment has on young people, especially young women of color. By singling out federal funding, Hyde effectively denies poor young people their constitutional right to an abortion. Given that twenty-two percent of all young women live at or below the poverty level and three in ten young people are enrolled in Medicaid, denying access to abortion is a reproductive justice issue for young people across America. For the often-forgotten approximately ten thousand women ages 18-44 being held in federal prisons and more than four thousand young Peace Corps volunteers, lack of federal funding forces approximately one in four unwanted pregnancies to be carried to term.

Passing the EACH Woman Act would remove significant financial barriers to abortion coverage that were expressly enacted by the early proponents of the Hyde Amendment. Representative Henry Hyde (R-IL), author of the original Hyde amendment, used the political vulnerability of poor women to impose his own beliefs on millions of people across America. For Rosie Jimenez and untold numbers of young women like her, this inability to access abortion can have harmful, even lethal effects. The EACH Woman Act would take young person’s decision to have an abortion out of the hands of out-of-touch politicians and place it back into their own, where it belongs.