According to an August 25th press release, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has issued an executive order which will effectively defund all abortion facilities in the state, emphasizing that “taxpayer dollars must not directly or indirectly subsidize abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.” The press release states that state agencies must “cease providing state or local funds, whether via grant, contract, state-administered federal funds, or any other form, to any physician or professional medical practice affiliated with an abortion clinic and operating concurrently with – and in the same physical, geographic location or footprint as – an abortion clinic.”
The governor emphasized the availability of health services from places that are not affiliated with abortion providers, saying that “a variety of agencies, clinics, and medical entities” in the state are taxpayer-funded and offer “women’s health and family planning services without performing abortions.”
The executive order notes that even though Title X grants are not provided to those committing abortions, prior to the executive order, there was the possibility that “abortion providers may be subsidized by State or local funds intended for other women’s health or family planning services” — in other words, money is fungible. Funding that subsidizes abortion providers, even if it isn’t abortion-related, is still subsidizing abortion providers. A video from Live Action explains this concept:
Gov. McMaster has instructed the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to “make available to the public a listing of all qualified non-abortion women’s health and family planning providers operating within a twenty-five mile radius of any abortion clinic excluded from the state’s Medicaid provider network.”
