Harris v. McRae

In 1965, Congress created the Medicaid program for the poor and infirm by adding Title XIX to the Social Security Act. Eleven years later, Congress passed the first of the Hyde Amendments to Medicaid--imposing varying degrees of financial restrictions on abortions. In 1980, Congress decided that no money would be provided for abortions unless the mother's health was endangered by a term pregnancy. Victims of rape or incest--if they reported their pregnancy promptly--could also receive the federally-sponsored medical procedures.

The same day that the first Hyde Amendment was enacted, Cora McRae, a pregnant Medicaid recipient seeking an abortion, filed a legal challenge to the amendment in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York. (Like Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, McRae delivered her child before the suit reached its conclusion.) She claimed that "the Hyde Amendment violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments of the Constitution insofar as it limited the funding of abortions to those necessary to save the life of the mother, while permitting the funding of costs associated with childbirth."

The following day, district judge John F. Dooling, Jr., issued a preliminary injunction. His full decision, issued three weeks later, was in full agreement with McRae. The case was also certified as a class action suit on behalf of all Medicaid-eligible New York State women who were pregnant or potentially pregnant and who would seek abortions during the 24 weeks of gestation.

Health and Human Services secretary, Patricia R. Harris, immediately appealed to the Supreme Court. Having just upheld the withdrawal of funding for "unnecessary" abortions in Beal v. Doe (1977) and Maher v. Roe (1977), the Court vacated the injunction against the enforcement of the Hyde Amendment and sent McRae's case back to Dooling for reevaluation against these recent decisions.