The Hyde Amendment, a pro-life rider that prevents federal dollars from funding most abortions, is being attacked by pro-abortion members of Congress. These legislators believe that access to abortion means not just that abortion should be legal, but that it should be funded by taxpayers. Statistics show that when abortion is subsidized by taxpayers, abortions increase. And that means the abortion industry stands to gain financially should its friends in Congress succeed in doing away with Hyde.
How much are federal taxpayers paying for abortions?
Despite the Hyde Amendment, taxpayer dollars do fund some abortions at the federal level. According to expenditure reports at Medicaid.gov, $65,077 federal dollars went toward abortion in 2017 — of that, over $37,000 came from federal taxpayer dollars and nearly $28,000 came from state taxpayers. In 2018, that total number increased to $71,938, with nearly $46,000 coming from federal taxpayer dollars and $26,000 coming from states.
Live Action News has previously analyzed federal taxpayer funding for 2015 and 2016 under Medicaid assistance programs.
When taxpayers fund abortions, the number of abortions increases
While the Hyde Amendment prohibits most taxpayer funding of abortion at the federal level, states can use both state and federal taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion, and a growing number are. Statistics have shown that when women do not pay for their own abortions, the number of abortions increases.
A survey published by Guttmacher in 2017 revealed that women who have taxpayer-funded abortions tend to have more abortions. It also revealed that the majority of those women were using contraception when they became pregnant.
A report published in 2017 by the pro-abortion Reproductive Health Investors Alliance showed the percentage of abortions paid for by taxpayers in states that do not cover abortions via Medicaid was just 1.5%. However, in states that use Medicaid to cover abortions, that figured jumped to 52.2%. An analysis published in 2018 by the Guttmacher Institute found that “Medicaid was the second-most-common method of payment [for abortion], reported by 24% of abortion patients.”
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that in 2014, 1,036 taxpayer-funded Obamacare health exchange insurance plans covered elective abortion and they are set to increase substantially in 2021, according to Live Action News.
A report published by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) on the website ObamacareAbortion.com revealed that there are 1,296 Obamacare exchange plan offerings for the 24 states and D.C. that legally permit elective abortion in Obamacare for 2021.
“Through their federal taxes, people who live in states where plans do not cover elective abortion are still subsidizing abortion on demand in plans in other states – this would never be allowed if the Hyde amendment had truly been applied to Obamacare,” the report states.
How much money are state taxpayers paying for abortions?
While the Hyde Amendment prevents most abortions from being paid for by federal tax dollars, each state can determine its own taxpayer funding. Below are some particularly stunning examples of the large amounts of taxpayer dollars being funneled to the abortion industry from states.
In 2014, California taxpayers paid $28 million for 83,485 abortions, according to a Medi-Cal induced abortion report. And between 1989 and 2014, California taxpayers paid over half a billion dollars for abortions.
In 2019, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker solidified a 2017 law with an executive order, which forced taxpayers to pay for state employees’ and Medicaid recipients’ abortions. “Illinois taxpayers paid for nearly four times more abortions in the first six months of 2018 than the year before,” noted a local news report. This is a massive increase. National Review reported:
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by NewsChannel 20 in Springfield, Ill., found that in the first six months of 2018, there was a sharp increase in the number of taxpayer-funded abortions in the state. In the first half of 2017, only 84 abortions were publicly funded, but in the first half of 2018 — after HB 40 had taken effect — 1,561 abortions were paid for by Illinois taxpayers. This is an increase of 1,758 percent. It appears that approximately 10 percent of all abortions performed in Illinois are paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Alaska‘s 2017 data shows that half of women who aborted in the state used taxpayer-funded Medicaid to pay for their abortions. In 2019, that percentage dropped to 45%, though reported abortions actually increased slightly.
Minnesota taxpayers have been funding nearly 44% of abortions in their state over the past few years. (2017, 2018, 2019)
However, according to an analysis from the Minnesota pro-life group MCCL, in the past 25 years, taxpayers have bankrolled the death of 90,000 babies at the cost of approximately $27 million.
In South Carolina, Planned Parenthood alone received almost $360,000 from state taxpayers from 2011-2016. In Oregon, $1.9 million in taxpayer funds were used to pay for about 3,600 abortions via the Oregon Health Plan (2017-18). Connecticut taxpayers were forced to dole out $4.2 million for abortions in 2018, according to an analysis by the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Taxpayer-funded abortions in New York make up nearly half of the reported abortions in the state (2016, 2017). In 2019, the state set aside another $250,000 to fund abortions for women who travel to NY from other states.
Maryland taxpayers doled out $60 million between 2006 and 2018 to fund 86,519 abortions. In just the past three years (2016 to 2018), taxpayers in the state paid $17.5 million to fund 26,588 abortions at an average cost of $658 per abortion. In 2018, the majority were committed for the woman’s “mental health.” In addition, it reveals that the number of taxpayer funded abortions in Maryland is rising (2016, 2017, 2018).
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute recently reported that out of the 33 states that fund abortions in cases of life endangerment, rape, and incest, four also use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions in cases of “fetal impairment.” Another four allow taxpayer funding when “necessary to prevent grave, long-lasting damage to the woman’s physical health.”
The report also found that 16 states (AK, CA, CT, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, MN, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA) use taxpayer dollars to fund most abortions by categorizing them as “medically necessary,” a term that creates a large loophole, allowing abortion on demand.
Editor’s Note, 12/28: This article was updated to add Obamacare information.
“Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!
