The granddaddy of all post–Roe v. Wade anti-abortion victories, the Hyde Amendment severely restricts abortion access for poor women. Passed just three years after the landmark reproductive rights case, the amendment prohibits federal funds, like Medicaid payments, from covering abortions. Its proponents blatantly admitted to its discriminatory power. “I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion,” said its author, Henry Hyde. “Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the . . . Medicaid bill.”

Before the amendment’s introduction in Congress, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops organized anti-abortion campaigns in each district and asked every congressperson to take a public stand on abortion. This advocacy culminated in the House’s shocking yes vote, leading surprised anti-abortion groups to flood senators with telephone calls. Ultimately, the amendment passed both houses, and it has been reenacted every year since.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, which criminalizes abortions after the first trimester of pregnancy, was the anti-choice movement’s next great prize. The road to the federal ban started in the states: by 2000, around thirty-one states had passed laws forbidding so-called partial-birth abortions. Virginia governor James Gilmore saw the ban as a “crack in the dike” that would eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.