ABORTING MEDICAID
Sexton, Patricia Cayo
• We have come a long way on the abortion issue, but we still have a long road ahead, especially with a preacher-president who is reconciled to the fact that, in this world anyhow, "there...
...We have come a long way on the abortion issue, but we still have a long road ahead, especially with a preacher-president who is reconciled to the fact that, in this world anyhow, "there are many things in life that are not fair" and that the federal government should not try "to make these opportunities exactly equal...
...Carter's HEW Secretary, however, is apparently short-circuiting the law-makers by ordering the prohibition himself...
...These proposals resemble the House and Senate versions and will probably be enacted as the federal "option" regarding abortion...
...Until such measures become national law, the state legislatures will kick the issue around...
...but New York's Irish Catholic Governor Carey and California's Irish Catholic Governor Brown are supporting Medicaid's use for such purposes...
...The funds will continue to be available in states that do not prohibit such use...
...New Jersey's Irish Catholic Governor Byrne and Connecticut's Italian Catholic Grasso are voting to prohibit the use of Medicaid for abortion...
...The Supreme Court has allowed the states to prohibit the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortions sought by the indigent...
...The next battle will be fought out in Congress and in state legislatures...
...Of course, in the absence of federal funds, state and local governments can use their own welfare funds to pay for abortions, but these sources are already so overburdened that the prospect does not seem bright...
...What we learn from defeat can be as instructive as what we learn from victory...
...President Carter has vigorously defended the Court ruling and, instead of Medicaid for abortion, his Administration offers proposals for federal subsidies to people who adopt hard-toplace children (presumably the children of mothers who could not afford abortions), as well as subsidies to cover the maternity expenses of women who plan to put their babies up for adoption...
...The right-to-abortionists say that's the democratic way, that every use to which taxes are put offends some minority...
...The antiabortionists feel their taxes should not pay for abortions...
...They also say—and they are absolutely right—that denying Medicaid for voluntary abortions is to impose an often unendurable hardship on thousands of impoverished women and the children they want and can afford to support...
...Liberals and leftists may learn, again, that conservatives can usually find ways to make life fair and opportunities equal when they are afflicted, but when the less influential are bearing the brunt, what we mainly get is a lot of sanctimonious talk about how tough life is...
...In Washington, following the lead of the Court and of Carter, bills are being shaped that will go beyond the Court decision and prohibit Medicaid for voluntary abortions, except where life is endangered...
...Feminists may learn that opposition to abortion rights is far stronger and more ubiquitous than assumed, and that it cannot be dismissed as a Catholic quibble...
...The latest battle in the impassioned war over abortion has been decisively lost by the right-toabortion group...
Vol. 24 • September 1977 • No. 4
