Abortion Biz: Medicaid Would Pay $16K to Kill Down Syndrome Baby

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 31, 2011   |   11:37AM   |   Albuquerque, NM

The pro-life group Operation Rescue has released a second undercover call it recorded exposing how abortion businesses are using money from Medicaid to pay for late-term abortions.

The first call showed how the Southwestern Women’s Options abortion center in Albuquerque, New Mexico offered information on how Medicaid would cover the $9,000 cost of a late-term abortion. This second call has the same abortion business telling a caller Medicaid would cover the estimated cost of $10,000-$16,000 for an abortion at 30 weeks gestation on an unborn baby diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

The call was placed on October 12 to Southwestern Women’s Options, a late-term abortion clinic in Albuquerque that has had issues with sending women to the hospital because of botched abortions.

“I’m pregnant with a Down Syndrome baby,” the caller says. “But I’m 30 weeks now but I have Pregnancy Medicaid. I was just wondering if that would cover the termination at your office?”

“And you live in New Mexico?” the abortion facility worker asks. “And it’s New Mexico Medicaid? That does cover the procedure for you.”

The abortion facility worker continues, “Approximately where are you in the pregnancy?”

“I’m right around 30 weeks,” the caller confirms — and the abortion worker tells her, “It does look like it’ll be a three, possibly four, days um process. That would be something we could start as early as next Tuesday.”

Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, says he is disturbed that taxpayer funds via Medicaid would go towards paying for taking the life of an unborn child with Down Syndrome.

“We know that 92 percent of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome end up aborting their babies. Now we know that it is done at great expense to the taxpayer, who foots the bill for outrageously expensive abortions,” he said. “These precious babies do not deserve to die and certainly the taxpayers should not be paying to kill them. The fact that our tax money goes to exterminate innocent children with disabilities is abhorrent to most Americans. Cutting off the tax funding will go a long way toward ending this barbaric and intolerant practice.”

New Mexico is one of 15 states where Medicaid currently pays for abortions, including Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, new Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. For example, California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, paid out over $23.6 million to cover abortions in 2007 alone

The undercover caller phoned abortion clinics in 12 of those states and in every case was told that Medicaid would pay for abortions.

“Medicaid is a joint government program that is funded completely by tax dollars. Up to fifty percent of the money comes from state taxes and the rest comes from the Federal tax coffers, depending on the state’s poverty level,” Newman explained. “Federal Medicaid funds are not supposed to cover abortions, but do so in the cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother, exceptions that have been exploited in the past to include more abortions. But it is State money that generally funds abortions to the tune of millions of dollars annually.”