{"id":205871,"date":"2019-07-05T10:11:20","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T15:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=205871"},"modified":"2019-07-04T14:41:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T19:41:05","slug":"alaska-gov-supreme-court-abortions-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/alaska-gov-supreme-court-abortions-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska gov to state Supreme Court: You want abortions? You pay for them."},"content":{"rendered":"
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After attempts by the state legislature to block state tax dollars from going towards elective abortions, the Alaska state Supreme Court ruled that the state must<\/i> fund them. In response full of poetic justice, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has ordered that since the state is being forced to fund abortions, this funding will be taken from the Supreme Court\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

In a budget document released Friday, the administration stated: \u201cThe legislative and executive branch are opposed to state-funded elective abortions; the only branch of government that insists on state-funded elective abortions is the Supreme Court. The annual cost of elective abortions is reflected by this reduction.\u201d The amount of money withheld from the court in the governor’s budget veto, $335,000, is equivalent to the amount spent in 2018 on abortions.<\/p>\n

A response<\/a> from Alaska Family Action on Facebook Friday stated, \u201cThe Alaska Supreme Court has a long history of extremist rulings on abortion. But until today, they never suffered any real consequences for it. Now they will start feeling the pain of their own arrogance. Every dollar the state spends on killing unborn children will be cut from their budget. At the risk of stating the obvious, today\u2019s action is no long-term solution. Ultimately, our goal must be to ensure that no agency of state government is paying even one cent to destroy life. The best way to accomplish this permanently is to amend our constitution to make it abundantly clear there is no right in the state constitution for abortion, or abortion funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Alaska Supreme Court: Parents have no rights regarding minor daughters\u2019 abortions<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Alaska, which currently has no legal limit<\/a> on late-term abortions, had paid for abortions using Medicaid since at least 1973<\/a> without any limitations. In 2001, the state Supreme Court struck down a 1998 rule by Alaska\u2019s health department to align state policy with the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits most federal funding for abortion. In 2013, the Parnell administration attempted to regulate the use of Medicaid funding for abortions in the state, and in 2014, the state legislature passed a law limiting such funding to \u201cmedically necessary\u201d abortions.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedically necessary\u201d abortions were defined by the state as abortions that \u201cmust be performed to avoid a threat of serious risk to the life or physical health of a woman from continuation of the woman\u2019s pregnancy.\u201d However, abortion is never medically necessary<\/a>, and abortion is not healthcare<\/a>.<\/p>\n