Abstract

PIP: The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding for virtually all abortions for indigent women eligible for medical assistance. The Hyde Amendment represents a compromise on the politically sensitive issue of legality of all abortions. Despite the political controversy, however, real gains have been made since the Court decision legalizing abortion in 1973, in providing abortions services and lowering their costs. With the cutoff of Federal funds, however, most states will probably not support abortion services, thus rendering the poor and young especially vulnerable to the consequences of unwanted pregnancies. Barring the restoration of public funding, and noting that the cost of replacing it with private philanthropy is too high to be realistic, the author suggests some ways in which the cost of abortion services could be held down. Among these are setting up low cost clinic services in areas where no such services exist, thus alleviating substantial travel expenses for poor rural women; advertising the availability of such services and making other efforts to assure earlier, safer, less expensive procedures; encouraging clinics and hospitals to bill Medicaid for medical services related to (but not involved in) the abortion procedure; instituting outpatient abortion services in hospitals; and establishing satellite and mobile services by larger facilities to serve outlying areas.