Well-to-do Americans have never been particularly fond of poor people, particularly poor women-people. Their contempt inevitably breeds inequality. Today income and wealth inequality is higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country and rising. Is this a recent phenomenon? No, the U.S. has been preparing for what is now a tsunami of inequality with a history of economic excesses. Inequality starts with the U.S. founding document, the Constitution, written by wealthy planters and landowners intent on preserving their primacy. These nuggets tell the tale. As written, the Constitution limited the right to vote to white men (most states further limited it to property-owning white men). Women and black men were persona non grata. An electoral college was inserted between the people and the presidency and Senators were elected by state legislators rather than voters. All defenses to prevent a take-over by the “rabble.”
In this cradle of democracy as most Americans are indoctrinated to think of their country, poor women’s needs don’t count. When the leaked draft of the Supreme Court majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, threatened middle-and-upper class women’s prerogatives, all hell broke loose.
Outcry raged from the usual suspects — democratic politicians hoping to change the conversation as the November elections neared, self-described pro-choice ‘charitable’ organizations whose money comes from well-to-do white women, and an assorted bunch of media pontificators— If the report (Alito’s leaked draft) is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years, not just on women but on all Americans.” [Joint statement of Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House]. In their usual role of democrats’ shill, The New York Times, quoted Patty Murray (D-WA) senator protecting her constituency of wealthy white women— ““We need to fight back with everything we’ve got right now. The right to abortion is on the line, and I’ll never stop fighting to protect it.” [NYT 5/3/2022]. In high dungeon, the leader of one of the leading ‘pro-choice’ organizations for wealthy women, NARAL, kicked the audio up a couple of decibels — “This is the most alarming sign yet that our nation’s highest court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion as we know it and ripping away our freedom to decide if, when, and how to raise our families.” [NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju]
Suspicious Angels readers will immediately see what’s wrong with this picture. A passel of women who will fight to the death to protect their own freedom of choice but have little interest in making Roe protections universal. All the “important” people in the democratic party, in women’s rights NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and a bevy of middle and upper-class women and even men were horrified and outraged at what appears to be the end of legal abortions. Obtainable of paramount importance to them, affordable not at all.
Would it surprise you to learn that one-quarter of U.S. women of child-bearing age, are unable to exercise the freedom of choice provided by Roe because of a little-known scam called the Hyde Amendment which makes it a crime to use federal money (part of the state-federal funding of Medicaid) to pay for most abortions? Roe may guarantee access, but access is an empty promise if you don’t have the right insurance or $500-$3,000 to afford a ‘legal’ abortion. Since the Hyde Amendment is not a law but a rider, it only becomes law when inserted into the annual funding package of any government department. Ending Roe is a simple matter of not adding it to the federal budget. A task a corrupt, spineless Congress has been unable (or more likely) unwilling to do for forty-six years since 1976.
Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker was livid enough when the leaked draft hit the airwaves to make a solo statement—”This is about something so serious and so personal and so disrespectful of women. Here we are on Mother’s Day, a week where the court has slapped women in the face in terms of disrespect for their judgments about the size and timing of their families… [Pelosi in a Meet the Press interview, 5/8/2022. Her tune changed dramatically when she was asked about the abortion prohibition which only applies to poor, mainly women of color — “I do not think it [Hyde] is good public policy, and I wish we never had a Hyde Amendment, but it is the law of the land right now. I don’t see that there is an opportunity to get rid of it…” Really, “no opportunity to get rid of it” when the democrats have majorities in both Houses of Congress and in the White House. No opportunity or no intention?
Think back to 2009. Barack Obama became president promising to reclaim the American dream. A notable exception to that promise were poor women whose American dream remained a nightmare. Although he had a super majority in the Senate and a commanding majority in the House, Obama sacrificed poor women on the altar of overweening ambition. Here’s how he explained his betrayal— “I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that’s where I’m going to focus.” He focused with an Executive Order establishing “an adequate enforcement mechanism to insure that federal funds are not used for abortion services consistent with longstanding… restriction” thereby guaranteeing that the Hyde Amendment’s ban on the use of federal money for abortion would be baked into the cake of his new corporate-driven healthcare system. The essential Obama — sacrificing the future of twenty million American women to create his self-described legacy.
Not that the three other democratic presidents since the Hyde Amendment was first enacted had or have anything more than hot air to offer poor, mainly Black and Latina women who could not afford an abortion. Jimmy Carter, president when the Hyde amendment was born and now a born-again champion of the poor not only signed the first bill including Hyde but couldn’t resist rubbing salt in the wound — “As you know there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people can’t have. Keep building those houses Jimmy but when it really mattered when you could have done something for millions of poor American women, you whiffed.
The passage of time didn’t soften democrats’ cold, cold hearts. Next up, “I feel your pain” Clinton who campaigned against Hyde as is the tradition of all democratic hopefuls on the campaign trail, but in a familiar backflip President Clinton reauthorized Hyde eight times.
The latest democratic poseur, Joe Biden, who in 1981 had an anti-abortion bill named for him tried to change his spots on the campaign trail in 2019. Joe’s rhetorical skill not being up to those of his former boss, his staff got busy with their brooms. On May 4, 2019, a voter asked Biden if he agreed that the Hyde Amendment should go. His answer: “Right now, it (Hyde Amendment) can’t stay.” It turned out that that wasn’t really what he meant to say. According to his staff, he “misheard” the question and still supported Hyde. In the face of a rising crescendo of blowback, on June 6, Joe retracted his retraction — “If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code.”
End of story, right? Not exactly. Four months later a reporter asked Biden if he would sign the 2022 budget bill if the Hyde Amendment was in it. Fearless Joe replied “I’d sign it either way. No the others, he signed it.
Here’s the real irony. Democratic politicians are always prattling on how “equality is the bedrock of democracy.” [from Biden’s Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government]. Bloviating on equality is one thing but when it’s time for action, the halls of Congress are deserted. Presidents too generally take a powder to Camp David or a jaunt to one of the Empire’s colonies.
It’s 2022 and the prospects for poor women to join their wealthier sisters for as long as Roe exists is nil. The latest budget passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president will once again contain the Hyde prohibition against abortion rights for poor women. Is it an accident that the women left out are poor and mainly Black? In a nation supposedly striving to level the playing field, why do atrocities like the Hyde Amendment remain on the books? So many questions, so few answers. In the richest, most powerful country in the world, poor women have no hope for change.
