Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Dangerous Prenatal Care
Bill Advances

Proposal Twists Prenatal
Care into another Abortion Slush Fund

On Tuesday, June 2, the Senate
Health Committee favorably voted on S.3257, legislation which would completely
rewrite the state’s successful Prenatal Care Assistance Program (PCAP).  Sponsored by Senator Tom Duane (D –
NYC), the bill would significantly expand state financing of abortion, by
providing Medicaid funding for abortion to pregnant women above the Medicaid
eligibility threshold.  The bill is
sponsored in the Assembly by Assemblyman Richard Gottried (D – NYC) and is
numbered A.8397.

The bill was reported by the
Senate Health Committee to the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Carl
Kruger (D- Brooklyn).  In the
Assembly, the bill sits in the Ways and Means Committee, the finance committee
of that house.

Some Background

PCAP took effect in 1990 and was
designed to lessen the serious problems of low birthweight newborns and infant
mortality in the state.  The program
assists those pregnant women who are not otherwise Medicaid-eligible, but who
nonetheless need help paying for obstetrical visits, labor, delivery and
post-partum care.  The program has a
proven track record in decreasing infant mortality.

Soon after PCAP was enacted, the
program was challenged in court by the American and New York Civil Liberties
Unions representing Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, who claimed
that PCAP was unconstitutional because it did not provide funding for
abortions.  In the lawsuit, known as
Hope v. Perales, it was charged that
the state had no authority to establish a program specifically geared toward
healthy childbirths. 

Thankfully, after years of
litigation, the New York State Court of Appeals declared unanimously in May 1994
that PCAP is constitutional.  Chief
Judge Judith Kaye wrote that “PCAP does not in any sense burden a fundamental
right” to abortion and the statute is valid because it “bears a rational
relationship to the state’s interest in providing much-needed prenatal care to
low-income women.” (83NY2d563, 634NE2d183, 611NYS2d811, 1994).

The Current Threat

S.3257 / A.8397 would undo the
high court’s decision in Hope v.
Perales by eliminating the list of pregnancy-related services covered by
PCAP in current law, granting the Health Commissioner broad discretion to define
such services, and opening Medicaid reimbursement – and by extension, abortion
funding – to pregnant women with incomes above the basic Medicaid eligibility
level.  This will result in even more of your money going to
pay for abortion, already funded by taxpayers at a level above $45
million per year.

This legislation would accomplish
one dangerous “piece” of the radical “Reproductive Health Act” legislation
previously promoted by former Governor Eliot Spitzer.  In effect, it would dismantle PCAP and
enable prenatal services for women above the Medicaid eligibility level to be
funded under the abortion-funding Medicaid program.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been
clear that states may favor childbirth over abortion (Webster v. Reproductive Health Services,
1989) and that government may choose to fund one activity (childbirth) to the
exclusion of another (abortion) without placing any obstacle in the path of a
woman desiring abortion (Rust v.
Sullivan, 1991).  Indeed, not
paying for an abortion under PCAP does not in any way restrict the right to an
abortion in New York State or alter New York’s current Medicaid reimbursement
program for abortion.

Take Action Now

Contact your elected state
officials today.  Tell them not to
pervert the successful healthy babies program into yet another slush fund for
abortion.  Tell them to amend S.3257
/ A.8397 to specifically state that “prenatal care services” does not include
abortion or abortion-related services.

Unless this change is adopted,
urge your State Senator and Assembly Representative to oppose the bill, which as
currently written, would turn a prenatal program on its head by allowing it to
fund the destruction of preborn infants as a means of promoting healthy
babies.

Time is short.  There are only three more weeks left in
the regular 2009 State Legislative Session!

Call today:

Assembly Switchboard:           
518-455-4100

Senate Switchboard:                
518-455-2800

Find your lawmakers through www.nyscatholic.org – click on “Take
Action Now” then scroll down to “My Elected Officials” and click “View.”

Message to Lawmakers:  “Oppose S.3257 / A.8397 unless it is
amended to exclude abortion funding. 
I do not want any more of my tax dollars funding abortion in

New York

State

.  Do not distort a successful prenatal
care program by enabling its funding to be used for the destruction of infants
prior to birth.”