And a rise in health care services connected to the Catholic Church in these states has made it even more challenging to find accessible abortion care. States with some of the nation’s highest Native American populations - Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana - have either completely banned abortion or have expressed a desire to. There are now 13 states with total bans on abortion. And now, in 2023, the path for Native Americans to access safe abortions in medical settings is damn near nonexistent. In other words, The Hyde Amendment has acted as a pseudo-ban that many hospitals and clinics adhere to, limiting abortion access to the 2.6 million American Indians and Alaska Natives reliant on the federally funded Indian Health Services for health care.įor more than 40 years, Native communities have basically been treated like pawns by politicians who used federal policy to control the reproductive health outcomes of Native people, making it challenging for those part of sovereign nations to achieve full reproductive justice. It restricted the use of federal funds for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or threats to the life of the child-bearing person. Soon after the Supreme Court’s Roe decision in 1973, the Hyde Amendment was enacted on behalf of anti-abortion congressmen. government’s tactics to thin the Native population.Īnd it gets even more complicated. Native tribes carry the trauma of this violence, and there are some tribal leaders and members who believe abortion access will continue to aid in the U.S. This went on even after the Roe ruling, until about 1976. Many Native women resisted, and their fight against what was deemed involuntary sterilization was also a fight against a long tradition of the government trying to control and erase them. coerced sterilization on an estimated 25% of Native people (likely mostly those who lived on a reservation) who could give birth, some as young as 15. “We’re already an oppressed community, and then we have this oppression on top of that oppression.” “That’s a lot of barriers,” Matson, who lives in Sioux Falls and is Sicangu Lakota, told AP. government and Native law.Īnd then there’s the very unsavory history that informs some communities’ present-day attitudes on abortion, as The Associated Press recently reported through the stories of April Matson and a friend who both experienced insurmountable hardship while seeking care. Native Americans’ historic battle for reproductive care is a complex one, partly because the power to create legislation around it is split between the U.S. And now that Roe has been overturned and abortion rights are being rolled back all over the country, Indigenous Americans who need an abortion will have an even harder time getting one. Wade decision ushered in an era of protected abortion access, Native Americans didn’t experience the same rights because of federal policies that many believe were meant to control their reproductive liberties. But the taxing journey to seeking an abortion has actually been a reality for many Native Americans for quite some time. As you might’ve heard, this is a shitty new reality for people in the United States living in areas where abortion is banned. Imagine having to drive nine hours away for a medical procedure you’re in desperate need of. Politicians have treated Native communities like pawns in an attempt to control their reproductive health outcomes.
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