If Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey gets what she wants, Bay State taxpayers will pay several million dollars to fund abortions in fiscal year 2024.
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. That costs the state more than $2 million per year, as NewBostonPost has previously reported.
However, the proposed fiscal year 2024 budget from Healey would require taxpayers to spend an additional $2 million on abortions.
A line item in her proposed budget called “Reproductive Health Access Infrastructure and Security” would provide a combined $2 million in funding for three private abortion funds in the Commonwealth.
The three funding recipients are the Jane Fund of Central Massachusetts, the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts, and the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund.
An abortion fund is an organization that helps pay for abortions if a woman is uninsured or her health insurance plan doesn’t cover abortion.
Here is the provision of the budget that would provide this funding to these organizations:
For grants to support improvements in reproductive health access, infrastructure and security, including grants to the: (i) Jane Fund of Central Massachusetts, Corporation; (ii) Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts, Incorporated; and (iii) Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund, Incorporated; provided, that not later than March 1, 2024, the department of public health shall submit a report to the house and senate committees on ways and means detailing: (a) the grant distribution methodology; (b) a list of grant applicants; and (c) a list of successful grant applicants, including the amounts awarded and the projects being supported by the grants
Massachusetts Citizens for Life president Myrna Maloney Flynn told NewBostonPost that the abortion funding in the budget is not surprising, but is unfortunate for unborn children nonetheless.
Here is what she said by email:
Kudos to Governor Healey for keeping campaign promises. However, she and her administration would do well to be up front when it comes to categorizing such a request; it’s clearly not an ask for “reproductive health access” funding but an all-out grab for money to pay for as many abortions as possible. There were 16,795 abortions in Massachusetts during 2021 (the most recent annual data available). Seems like access is not at issue here but rather the absence of ethics.
But what a relief that there are reporting requirements required of grant recipients. I can’t wait until March 2024 to learn how grantees used state money to take the lives of its citizens. A little less serious than I would normally be, but Healey’s absurdity warrants an equivalent response.
Healey’s proposal is nothing new. The fiscal year 2023 budget also provided these organizations with a combined $2 million. At the time, Charlie Baker, a socially liberal Republican, was the state’s governor; he also supports taxpayer-funded abortion. The idea to provide these organizations with taxpayer funding originally came from a budget amendment from state Representative Thomas Stanley (D-Waltham), as NewBostonPost previously reported.
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(Courtesy of Wikimedia) 
