Practicing in California, it’s rare that I see a patient whose abortion is not funded. Whether it’s private insurance, Medi-Cal, or Family PACT (Planning, Access, Care, and Treatment), we can usually make the funding work. But in California, we also see a population of women who don’t know how to navigate the system—new immigrants.

I met Maria when she was several months pregnant and in need of an abortion. She didn’t speak English and besides her boyfriend and his family, she didn’t know anyone in the United States. When I asked her who had accompanied her to the clinic, I was surprised to hear that she didn’t know his name. Her boyfriend, she said, would hurt her if he knew she was pregnant. So she told a friend of his, and asked him to help her pay for the abortion. The friend did help, but only in exchange for sexual favors.

As she confided this to me, Maria began to cry. This was never the life she imagined for herself. She moved to the United States for the promise of a better life, but clearly this was not it. To repeal the Hyde Amendment is to provide a wider catch net and prevent cases like Maria’s. Private insurance and state funding is not enough to provide every woman in this country with the reproductive rights they deserve, and it’s not enough to prevent women from reverting to acts of desperation.