Lucy Tu

Over the weekend, reproductive-health-care providers across the country confronted a puzzle they had never before needed to solve at scale: how to offer medication abortion without mifepristone. The drug, also known as the abortion pill, is the first in a two-pill regimen that the FDA approved for pregnancy termination in 2000.

For nearly 50 years, the Hyde Amendment has been considered an unassailable fixture of the United States budget. First passed in 1976, just three years after the now-defunct Roe v. Wade ruling, the amendment prohibits federal programs from covering the cost of most abortions, with exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and life-threatening pregnancies.