Hyde Amendment impact affected by state Medicaid programs

State Medicaid programs and other policies have had a substantial impact on the effectiveness of the Hyde Amendment, a longstanding prohibition on federal tax dollars funding abortions that has been attached to spending bills for half a century, a new research report suggests.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm for the grassroots pro-life activist organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, released its updated calculations of the number of lives saved by the Hyde Amendment on Tuesday, the provision’s 49th anniversary. 

Michael New, a senior associate scholar at CLI and an assistant professor of social research at The Catholic University of America, authored the report. He was aided by researchers Mia Steupert, Tessa Cox and Elyse Gaitan.

Researchers considered data from all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, from 1976 to 2025 to determine the overall impact of the Hyde Amendment.

Congress enacted the amendment, sponsored by Republican Henry Hyde, in 1976, several years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. The Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions, and it is a legislative provision that Congress attaches annually to spending bills. 

Despite the federal restrictions, 19 state Medicaid programs covered elective abortion as of September 2025. The report highlighted multiple abortion policy changes since May 2023 that the authors argue have impacted the Hyde Amendment. 

“Two state Medicaid programs have begun to cover elective abortions. Nevada’s Medicaid program started paying for elective abortions on December 16, 2024, and Delaware’s state Medicaid program started paying for elective abortions on January 1, 2025,” the report stated. 

“The federal Hyde Amendment ceases to have an effect in preventing taxpayer funding of abortion when states use their own tax dollars to cover abortion through their Medicaid program,” the paper continued. 

Additionally, multiple states have enacted or strengthened existing laws restricting abortion since May 2023, such as Nebraska and North Carolina. In May 2023, both Nebraska and North Carolina enacted laws that banned most abortions after 12 weeks of gestation.

Indiana’s near-total ban on abortion went into effect in August 2023, while Florida, Iowa and South Carolina enacted laws prohibiting abortions after six weeks of gestation, a time when the unborn child’s heartbeat becomes detectable. 

“Abortion limits reduce the impact of the Hyde Amendment because these laws decrease the number of abortions that take place within state boundaries,” CLI’s report stated. “Thus, when an abortion is prevented, the abortion limit rather than the Hyde Amendment has protected the unborn child.”

“Also, when a woman circumvents an abortion limit by obtaining an abortion in another state where the laws are more permissive, the Hyde Amendment is not having an effect since state Medicaid programs do not pay for out-of-state medical procedures,” the report continued.

Since 2020, multiple state abortion limits, including heartbeat bills and gestational age limits, have gone into effect.

“These laws have reduced the impact of the Hyde Amendment since it is these laws and not the Hyde Amendment that is protecting unborn children,” the pro-life research institute reported.

“Overall, CLI has estimated that the Hyde Amendment saved 2,551,838 lives between 1976 and 2022; 36,257 lives in 2023; 33,474 lives in 2024, and 24,905 lives in 2025 (as of September 30th),” the paper continued. “It is now estimated that the Hyde Amendment has saved a total of 2,646,474 lives since 1976.”

CLI released the report in the same week that President Donald Trump’s administration announced that it is planning to expand the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits U.S. funding for foreign non-governmental organizations that provide or promote abortions. 

The State Department is working on an expansion that will also prohibit U.S. funding to organizations working abroad to promote gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion, as The Daily Signal reported Wednesday.

“The department will soon take additional steps to close loopholes that allowed taxpayer funding for promotion of abortion in previous iterations of the Mexico City Policy and expand the scope of the policy to ensure every penny of U.S. foreign assistance prioritizes American values, not the woke agenda,” a State Department official told the outlet.