Time to End Tax Funding of Abortions for 'Poor Little Rich Girls'

One of the most interesting revelations from the coverage of the Ballard High School 'Secret Abortion Program' by KIRO Radio's Dori Monson came when an employee of DSHS called in. The caller, who identified herself as Randi, said that not only are we one of the few states where minors can get abortions without parental notification or consent, and not only are we one of the few states where the government -- her department, to be specific -- gladly pays for abortions for low income girls and women, but in fact the taxpayer is picking up the tab for abortions even for 'poor little rich girls' from Mercer Island.

"So if a girl comes in," asked Mr. Monson, "and her family's got money, but she obviously doesn't have access to that money, and she says I can't pay for it, I don't want my parents to know, what does DSHS do?"

Now most people would probably expect, or at least hope, that the government a) wouldn't help the girl get an abortion behind her parents' back just because she doesn't want to tell them, and b) that the taxpayers' wouldn't have to pay when the girl's parents can easily afford to pay for the abortion, perhaps through their insurance.

But Randi replied: "We're looking at her eligibility alone, her income, her finances, her resources."

"Can she immediately be put on Medicaid, then?" asked Mr. Monson.

"Yep!" replied Randi. "She'll get Medicaid for 30 days, and for the remaining 11 months she'll have medical benefits for birth control."

We thought such a scheme must be either illegal, or an exploitation of a loophole. We asked DSHS's official spokesman, Jim Stevenson, who appeared on the show before Randi.

He pointed us to state law which explicitly allows a pregnant minor to be eligible for medical benefits regardless of whether or not she live with her parents. It isn't known whether this extremely liberal and permissive approach to government handouts for this particular circumstance was inserted in order to facilitate tax-funding of abortion, or out of a well-meaning desire to ensure babies got access to prenatal care.

If one assumes the best, you might hope that a law designed to provide easy access to health care so new moms can take the best possible care of their babies could be modified to prevent other moms from using it to exterminate their babies.

But because of the current state abortion law, such a sane and obvious reform would actually be illegal! You see, Initiative 120, which was passed by voters in 1992, included a provision which says that any government program which provides benefits for pregnant women who want to take care of their babies must be equally available to pregnant women who want to have their babies executed. The government MAY NOT favor life over death in its funding choices!

Power to the people!

To make things even more perverse, Washington law actually says that each "unborn child" must be counted towards "household size" when determining eligibility for medical benefits.

WAC 388-478-0065.
Income and resource standards for family medical programs
Each unborn child is counted as a household member when determining household size for ... Pregnancy medical;...

In other words, for a given income, the larger your household, the more likely you are to qualify. So you can actually have a situation, here in the Soviet of Washington, where a pregnant mother's "unborn child" could be the deciding factor in qualifying her for a state funded abortion!

That is the only place in Washington law where an unborn baby is referred to as an "unborn child".

These laws need to be changed immediately. Where are the politicians or would-be politicians in this state even talking about this? Wouldn't it be great if we had a Republican Attorney General, with ambitions for higher office, who could make a public show of calling for this situation to be fixed?