Hyde Amendment stopped 29% of Louisiana abortion seekers from getting one, study finds

A ban on government-funded abortions seems to have seriously affected the number of Louisiana women who receive them.

Of 269 women surveyed from 2015-2017 in Southern Louisiana during a first prenatal visit, 28 percent said they'd considered having an abortion. And of them, 29 percent said if their Medicaid coverage funded abortion, they would've gotten one, a study published Wednesday in the journal BMC Women's Health found.

Estimates currently suggest that 10 percent of pregnancies in Louisiana end in abortion, the study writes. But those statistics revolve around the fact that the Hyde Amendment has prevented federal Medicaid funds from being used to obtain an abortion for more than 40 years. If Medicaid did cover the procedure, an estimated 14 percent of Louisiana pregnancies would end in abortion, the study concluded.

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The Hyde Amendment has existed in some form or another since 1977, tacked onto appropriations bills every year to prevent government health care funding from being used to cover abortions. Former Vice President Joe Biden recently came under fire for his continued support of the Hyde Amendment, but he rescinded that support after a wave of 2020 Democrats declared their opposition to it.

All of the study's findings were reported to 95 percent confidence level, and were gathered via "self-administered iPad surveys and structured interviews." Find the whole study here.