Mary Margaret Olohan on June 19, 2019
Several Democratic presidential candidates voted for a package renewing the Hyde Amendment Wednesday, after swearing they would repeal it.
Though controlled by Democrats, the House of Representatives passed the bill within a package of Labor and Health and Human Services appropriations with a vote of 226 to 203, according to Fox News. No Republicans supported the bill and seven Democrats, including Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, opposed it, the publication reports.
2020 presidential candidates and Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell of California, Tim Ryan of Ohio, Seth Moulton of Massachusettes, and Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii each voted in favor of the bill. All of these candidates, with the exception of Gabbard, have said they will repeal Hyde if given the chance.
Every Democratic member of the House running for president voted for the bill.
“I want us to repeal the Hyde Amendment that says that only a woman with private health care insurance can make that decision,” said Swalwell during a CNN Town Hall in Atlanta according to Deadline.
Moulton spoke out in a tweet against the Hyde Amendment after former Vice President Joe Biden flipped his stance on Hyde.
“Bravo to Joe Biden for doing the right thing and reversing his longstanding support for the Hyde Amendment,” Moulton said in a tweet. “It takes courage to admit when you’re wrong, especially when those decisions affect millions of people. Now do the Iraq War.”
Bravo to @JoeBiden for doing the right thing and reversing his longstanding support for the Hyde Amendment. It takes courage to admit when you're wrong, especially when those decisions affect millions of people.
Now do the Iraq War.
— Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) June 7, 2019
Ryan also expressed support for Hyde in an interview with MSNBC.
“A woman in the United States, no matter how much money she has or doesn’t have, should be able to plan the size of her family. So I am pretty firm on this and I think we’ve got to be firm on it,” Ryan said according to the Free Beacon.
Gabbard’s campaign said that the Hawaiian representative supports Hyde, the Huffington Post reported in April. However, the Hawaii congresswoman has not publicly voiced this opinion and is one of only two Democratic congressional members who didn’t support the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2017, according to ThinkProgress.
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