Pro-life advocates led by Medicaid recipients announced the launch of #HelloHyde, a social media campaign to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment, which restricts taxpayer funding of abortion through the Medicaid program, has prevented over a million abortions since its enactment in 1976.
The #HelloHyde campaign features photographs of people born through the Medicaid program over the past forty years. Medicaid recipients can submit their photos at HelloHyde.org.
“I received Medicaid care as a baby, so the Hyde Amendment is incredibly important to me,” said #HelloHyde spokeswoman Gina Mallica. “Low-income children deserve a chance at life, not a government-subsidized death.”
Fellow spokeswoman Stargift Thomas, who was born through the Medicaid program in 1991, agreed. “For forty years, the Hyde Amendment has affirmed that lives like mine are worth living,” she said.
The fortieth anniversary of the Hyde Amendment will take place on September 30, 2016.
The Hyde Amendment is an annual rider to the federal budget. It prohibits federal funding of abortion through the Medicaid program, with exceptions for rape and the life of the mother. It has passed Congress with bipartisan support every year since 1976.
But the longstanding compromise between pro- and anti-abortion groups has been threatened in recent months. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, and repeal is also a plank in the proposed Democratic party platform.
“The repeal efforts are offensive to the many Americans who owe their lives to the Hyde Amendment,” Mallica said. “The #HelloHyde campaign puts faces to this life-or-death issue.”
But despite well-funded opposition, #HelloHyde campaigners are optimistic.
“This is a time to celebrate,” Thomas said. “The Hyde Amendment has saved over a million lives and we are confident that it will save many more in the future.”
LifeNews Note: The #HelloHyde campaign is coordinated by Secular Pro-Life, an organization that unites people of every faith and no faith to promote the right to life. Gina, pictured, is the daughter of Cuban immigrants and became a pro-life activist while attending the University of Florida.
