Jimmy Carter Courage Essay

Profiles in Courage Essay One of the most essential qualities that a leader must have is courage. Courage demonstrates not only our beliefs but also perseverance to our beliefs in a time where they are challenged. As someone who presided and represented the United States of America, President Jimmy Carter had courage. President Jimmy Carter was one of the most influential presidents as well as one of the presidents who showed political courage when he signed the Hyde Amendment, because at the time, and still now, there are a majority of people who are against abortion. When President Jimmy Carter ran for president, he ran as a Democrat and albeit his main concerns were mostly problems of oil, and human rights, his concerns expanded to the

Costanza was a feminist, and the Hyde Amendment was everything a feminist was fighting against. When she found out about his views she “facilitated an impromptu meeting of forty subcabinet level women to formulate a response to the Hyde Amendment ... and that she—or someone else— had leaked [his viewpoints on federal spending on abortion] to the media in an effort to pressure him” (Potter 100-102). Although Costanza brought in forty White House appointees and leaked his viewpoints to make her point and urge President Carter to waive his viewpoints, President Carter stood firm and passed the Hyde Amendment, saving a number of unborn babies. A few years after the passing of the Hyde Amendment, was the Supreme Court Case Harris vs. McRae in 1980. The Supreme Court Ruled that “Title XIX does not require a participating State to pay for those medically necessary abortions for which federal reimbursement is unavailable under the Hyde Amendment... The funding restrictions of the Hyde Amendment do not impinge on the "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment held in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 168, to include the freedom of a woman to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy...Nor does the Hyde Amendment violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment” (Cornell). During his presidency, many may regard President