Source+3

" Public Funding for Abortion." //American Civil Liberties Union//. N.p., 21 July 2004. Web. 16 Aug. 2012. .

__Facts:__

 * Thirty-two states pay for abortions for low-income women in cases of life-endangering circumstances, rape, or incest, as mandated by federal Medicaid law.
 * The number of abortion-related deaths in the US decreased between 1972 and 1980, from 90 to 16. Most of this decrease resulted from the availability and safety of legal abortion.
 * In 1983 more than 1.3 million procedures were performed -- a figure close to the estimated number of illegal abortions performed before 1970
 * illegal abortion may carry a risk of death as much as 30 times that of legal abortion.
 * The Hyde Amendment excludes abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income people by the federal government through Medicaid.
 * Medicaid offers comprehensive reproductive health care, including family planning, prenatal care, and services related to childbirth. By singling out abortion for exclusion, politicians have attempted to impose their own choices on poor women.
 * The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a program providing expanded health insurance for children aged 19 or younger, includes a ban on the use of federal funds for abortions unless the pregnancy endangers the teenager's life or results from rape or incest.
 * In addition to poor women on Medicaid, those denied access to federally funded abortion include Native Americans, federal employees and their dependents, Peace Corps volunteers, low-income residents of Washington, DC, federal prisoners, military personnel and their dependents, and disabled women who rely on Medicare.
 * By the early 1980s, Congress had passed restrictions similar to the Hyde Amendment affecting programs on which an estimated twenty million women rely for their health care or insurance.
 * The Balanced Budget Act of 1997, for example, permits health maintenance organizations (HMOs) serving Medicaid recipients to refuse to cover counseling or referral for services, such as abortion, to which the HMO objects on moral or religious grounds.
 * Additional provisions adopted by Congress may further burden access to abortion services for Medicaid recipients, even those in states with nondiscriminatory funding.
 * One state (SD) fails even to comply with the Hyde Amendment, instead providing coverage only for lifesaving abortions.
 * Currently only seventeen states fund abortions for low-income women on the same or similar terms as other pregnancy-related and general health services.
 * The costs associated with childbirth, neonatal and pediatric care greatly exceed the costs of abortion, public funding for abortion neither costs the taxpayer money nor drains resources from other services.
 * If a woman chooses to carry to term, Medicaid (and other federal insurance programs) offer her assistance for the necessary medical care. But if the same woman needs to end her pregnancy, Medicaid (and other federal insurance programs) will not provide coverage for her abortion, even if continuing the pregnancy will harm her health.