Congress passes Hyde Amendment barring federal Medicaid from covering abortions, cutting off care for an estimated 300,000 low-income women annually

On September 30, 1976, the House of Representatives voted 312-93 to adopt the Hyde Amendment, a budget rider attached to the annual Department of Health, Education, and Welfare appropriations bill, prohibiting federal Medicaid funds from being used for abortions except to save the life of the mother. Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, the sponsor, stated plainly on the House floor: "I would certainly like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion — a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman." Before the Amendment took full effect following Harris v. McRae in 1980, federal Medicaid had funded an estimated 300,000 abortions annually. The Amendment has been renewed every fiscal year since 1976, making it the longest-running federal abortion restriction.