Should Massachusetts increase the amount that taxpayers spend to fund abortion?
The state’s governor thinks so.
Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker said that increased funding for abortion is a “good place to start” to respond to reports that the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade next month, sending abortion law back to the states.
During an interview with WBUR on Thursday, May 12, Baker said that overturning the 49-year-old court decision would be “a major setback for women.”
Baker told WBUR that he has “talked to colleagues of mine in the Legislature about what, if anything, we need to do to be able to support people who are seeking those kinds of services and can’t get them where they live.”
The Massachusetts House of Representatives budget includes an amendment that would provide $500,000 for private abortion funds throughout the state. And State House News Service reports that the Massachusetts Senate wants to increase that figure to $2 million.
Baker told WBUR he likes the idea.
“And I think that’s a good place to start but we need to see a decision before we decide what else we might be able to help with,” Baker said of the two funding proposals. “But I think this is something that should be a high priority for us.”
An abortion fund is an organization that helps pay for women’s abortions if they’re uninsured or their health insurance plan doesn’t cover abortion.
Since a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling in 1981, public funding in Massachusetts has paid the full cost of abortion for women whose incomes are low enough to qualify for Medicaid; it’s one of 16 states with publicly-funded elective abortions.
Massachusetts Senate Ways and Means chairman Michael Rodrigues (D-Westport) expressed his support for the increased abortion funding on Tuesday, May 10.
“This is ensuring that whoever accesses these services at these facilities can feel safe and the people that work there can feel safe,” Rodrigues told State House News Service.
“It’s to provide reproductive health facilities grants to make their facilities safer, whether it’s security staff, whether it’s structural changes to the facility,” he added.
The increased funding would go to three abortion funds in the state via grants: the Jane Fund of Central Massachusetts, the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts, and the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund.
The Senate budget debate is set to begin on Tuesday, May 24.
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(Courtesy of Wikimedia) 
