Earlier this month, multiple news outlets reported that Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program has started to cover elective abortions. Back in April, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled that existing limits on taxpayer funding of abortion violate the state’s Equal Rights Amendment. As such, for the first time since 1985, Keystone State taxpayers are paying for elective abortions through the state Medicaid program
What should concern pro-lifers is that Pennsylvania has become the seventh state in the past ten years whose state Medicaid program has started to cover elective abortions. Since 2017, Medicaid programs in Illinois, Maine, Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, and Rhode Island have started to cover elective abortions. A substantial body of policy and academic research shows that public funding of abortion increases abortion rates.
At some level this is unsurprising. During the past 20 years, the Democratic Party has certainly become much more liberal on abortion. The federal Hyde amendment used to receive bipartisan support. However, today, few, if any, Democratic representatives or senators publicly support the Hyde amendment. As such, it is unsurprising that many Democrats at the state level are also sympathetic to taxpayer funding of abortion.
Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Dave Sunday is appealing the Commonwealth Court’s decision to the State Supreme Court. Considering that five of the seven judges on the State Supreme Court are elected Democrats, however, a pro-life victory seems somewhat unlikely. That said, pro-lifers should commend the attorney general’s efforts. Thousands of innocent lives are at stake.