Did you know? 1976
- Apr. 28: The U.S. Senate conducts a “test vote” on the Human Life Amendment. The amendment draws 40 votes. A two-thirds vote (67 senators) is needed to approve a constitutional amendment.
- June 28: The first Hyde Amendment, sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Il.), is approved by the U.S. House. The amendment to the Department of Health and Human Services appropriations bill prohibits Medicaid funding of abortions with narrow exceptions.
- July 1: In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, the court rejected a parental consent requirement and decided that (married) fathers had no rights in the abortion decision. Furthermore, the Court struck down Missouri’s effort to ban the saline amniocentesis abortion procedure.
- Dec. 17: The manslaughter conviction of abortionist Edelin is overturned by the Massachusetts Superior Judicial Court, which rules that legal abortions are manslaughter only if the baby is definitely alive outside the mother’s body.