Hyde-Care for All: The Expansion of Abortion Funding Restrictions Under Health-Care Reform

This article critiques of the development of reproductive autonomy as a negative privacy right. It then describes the Supreme Court’s abortion funding cases from 1977-1980 and related cases prohibiting the use of public medical facilities or staff to perform abortions and the prohibition of federal funding to organizations that provide or refer people to abortion services. The article examines the expansion of Hyde Amendment restrictions to banning insurance coverage for abortion care on state insurance exchanges and in the private market and funding restrictions targeting Planned Parenthood. Finally, the article looks at alternative ways of analyzing health insurance restrictions on abortion coverage by considering state court cases, international law and the decisions of high courts in Canada, Colombia and Nepal.