The Progressive Caucus vs. the Hyde Amendment

Men are hypocrites. And sometimes they get exposed. When I was running Salon back in 1998, we revealed that Rep. Henry Hyde — the Republican leader of the House Judiciary Committee who was sitting in judgment on President Bill Clinton for his sexual recklessness with a White House intern — was himself guilty of an adulterous affair with beautician Cherie Snodgrass that broke up her family with three young children. When Hyde tried to write off the destructive, five-year affair as a “youthful indiscretion” — though he was in his 40s at the time — he became the laughingstock of late-night TV. Salon did not venture lightly into the shark-infested waters of sexual politics. But we decided that Hyde’s sexual hypocrisy — at a critical juncture for the nation when even the New York Times was heralding him as a “lion of Congress” — made him fair game.

But Henry Hyde has gone down in history for another rank exercise in sexual hypocrisy — the so-called Hyde Amendment that for decades has cut off Medicaid funding for poor women needing abortions. President Joe Biden finally decided not to renew the noxious amendment. But Senator Joe Manchin, the wolf in Democratic clothing, is trying to hold the president hostage on his Build Back Better legislation by (among other things) forcing him to revive the Hyde Amendment.

To the credit of the House Progressive Caucus, they are standing firm against Manchin’s bullying. Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, one of the Congress members who recently spoke out about her own experience with abortion, vowed that progressive legislators will not cave to Manchin’s demand on the Hyde Amendment — and so far Biden has been siding with them. (Caucus members are willing to make some compromises on the funding of social programs, front-loading the expenditures.)

For too long, men in Washington like Henry Hyde, Joe Manchin — and Brett Kavanaugh — have been dictating women’s reproductive decisions, after availing themselves of women’s bodies. It’s time to end this revolting male supremacy. Politicians like these should get their grubby hands off women’s bodies, once and for all.

The media picked up on Salon’s expose.