{"id":167977,"date":"2018-05-21T07:35:54","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T11:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=167977"},"modified":"2018-05-21T11:16:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T15:16:01","slug":"taxpayers-bill-medicaid-abortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/taxpayers-bill-medicaid-abortions\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxpayers footing the bill for hundreds of thousands of Medicaid abortions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For several years, statistics have shown that while abortions overall have been on the decline, the number of those which are funded by taxpayers has increased. New York is just one of several states in which taxpayers are funding Medicaid abortions, and the data shows that some of these were “repeats” — committed on women who had at least one previous abortion.<\/p>\n

The Federal Hyde amendment prohibits taxpayers from paying for most abortions (although it does allow the funding in certain cases), but states can spend Medicaid dollars however they choose. In New York<\/a>, they spend those dollars on abortion.<\/p>\n

\"New

New York pays for Medicaid abortions<\/p><\/div>\n

Casey Mattox, former director of the Center for Academic Freedom at Alliance Defending Freedom, noted in a a 2015 article<\/a>\u00a0from the Federalist:<\/p>\n

New York requires its taxpayers to pay for elective abortions through Medicaid, but these…are still not supposed to be paid by federal taxpayer dollars because of the Hyde Amendment. But [state] audits have revealed<\/a> that New York<\/a>, and apparently Planned Parenthood specifically, was billing federal<\/em> taxpayers for elective abortions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A breakdown of induced abortion from the New York Department of Health<\/a> reveals that, in 2012<\/a>, 44 percent (42,753) of New York’s 97,502 abortions were financed<\/a> through Medicaid.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

In 2013<\/a>, although the total number dropped to\u00a094,326, Medicaid funding<\/a> of abortion increased<\/em>.\u00a0That year\u00a043,066\u00a0women, nearly 46 percent of all abortions, were financed using taxpayer dollars through Medicaid.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

By\u00a02014<\/a>, additional increases can be seen, with 47 percent of women using taxpayer dollars.\u00a0The data also showed that while the total number of abortions had decreased from the previous year to 93,300, there was an increase<\/a> in Medicaid funded abortions (43,913) in 2014 year as well.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

By\u00a02015<\/a>, currently the last year of available data, we see another slight decrease of reported abortions from 2014,\u00a0dropping\u00a0to 86,627. We also see a slight decrease in the numbers of\u00a0tax funded<\/a> abortions, dropping to 42,549. However, the percentage of tax funded abortions increased from 47 percent the previous year to 49 percent in 2015.<\/p>\n

\"Image:

New York Medicaid tax funded abortion 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

Of course, it is not only New York\u2019s taxpayers who are paying for this: it is also federal taxpayers.<\/p>\n

To learn the extent to which taxpayer dollars are funding this human rights violation, look no further than websites from the abortion industry, including Planned Parenthood<\/a>.\u00a0The website of the abortion corporation’s New York affiliate clearly shows how easy it is to get a taxpayer funded abortion through Medicaid:<\/p>\n

\"Planned<\/p>\n

While we do not know the exact number of taxpayer-funded Medicaid abortions committed on women who already had at least one, the math is simple: the number of women who had not<\/em> experienced a previous abortion was smaller than the number of those funded by Medicaid. And the total number of women who had<\/em> experienced one or more abortions at the time they used Medicaid was much higher. (The report notes, “Categories will not add to Total Number because of unknown information.”)<\/p>\n