I find the fact that the government is not required to fund an abortion to be the biggest loophole I have seen through all of these readings. It is a way for the government to give citizens what they wanted, while also making it unreachable for some woman who need these abortions, such as woman of color or of low income. This strategy used by the government opened my eyes to other legal issues, such as the right to legal representation in court, causing low-income citizens facing legal issues to be impacted by the inability to afford the legal fees coupled with such representation - representing another legal loophole.
There is a "right/remedy gap," where the Constitution recognizes a right but doesn't guarantee the practical means to exercise it. The Supreme Court consistently holds that constitutional rights protect you from government interference, but don't require the government to help you exercise those rights. When rights depend on private resources, they become stratified by class and race; the wealthy can always access what they need while the poor face constitutional double standards.
Some states (like California and New York) choose to fund abortion services, and nonprofits have stepped in, but federal law (like the Hyde Amendment) limits national funding. Congress has debated changes, but none have stuck. So while there are efforts to close the gap, the overall constitutional rule hasn’t changed: rights exist, but resources to use them are not guaranteed.
More generally - In the U.S., most rights are protections from government interference, not guarantees of help to exercise them (this is the difference between negative and positive rights), unlike in many European countries that require governments to provide basic services.
Also worth noting - Abortion funding is especially complex because requiring public funding would place the government on one side of a very contentious moral debate. So this is about more than negative v. positive rights - it's about what message the government sends when it funds one side of a debate.
I find the fact that the government is not required to fund an abortion to be the biggest loophole I have seen through all of these readings. It is a way for the government to give citizens what they wanted, while also making it unreachable for some woman who need these abortions, such as woman of color or of low income. This strategy used by the government opened my eyes to other legal issues, such as the right to legal representation in court, causing low-income citizens facing legal issues to be impacted by the inability to afford the legal fees coupled with such representation - representing another legal loophole.
There is a "right/remedy gap," where the Constitution recognizes a right but doesn't guarantee the practical means to exercise it. The Supreme Court consistently holds that constitutional rights protect you from government interference, but don't require the government to help you exercise those rights. When rights depend on private resources, they become stratified by class and race; the wealthy can always access what they need while the poor face constitutional double standards.
Have there been any attempts to fix this issue in recent years?
Some states (like California and New York) choose to fund abortion services, and nonprofits have stepped in, but federal law (like the Hyde Amendment) limits national funding. Congress has debated changes, but none have stuck. So while there are efforts to close the gap, the overall constitutional rule hasn’t changed: rights exist, but resources to use them are not guaranteed.
More generally - In the U.S., most rights are protections from government interference, not guarantees of help to exercise them (this is the difference between negative and positive rights), unlike in many European countries that require governments to provide basic services.
Also worth noting - Abortion funding is especially complex because requiring public funding would place the government on one side of a very contentious moral debate. So this is about more than negative v. positive rights - it's about what message the government sends when it funds one side of a debate.