More unborn babies’ abortion deaths are being paid for by Illinois tax dollars this year after the state passed a radical pro-abortion law in 2017.
The Illinois News Network reports state Department of Health and Family Services data for the first half of 2018 shows state taxpayers paid for nearly four times as many abortions as they did in 2017.
The law, signed in September by pro-abortion Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, forces taxpayers to pay for elective abortions for Medicaid patients and state employees in Illinois; previously, tax dollars paid for abortions only in very limited circumstances. The law also keeps abortion on demand up to birth legal in Illinois and establishes the Land of Lincoln as a “safe haven” for women seeking abortions.
Illinois Right to Life, which predicted the law would increase abortions, lamented that its prediction is coming true.
“This is a tragic result of HB40 – the bill Governor Rauner signed and that went into effect earlier this year, forcing Illinois taxpayers to pay for abortions for those on Medicaid and state employees, through the full 9 months of pregnancy,” the pro-life group said on social media. “Abortions are expected to increase by the thousands, along with the number of taxpayer dollars used to pay for them.”
It noted that Illinois taxpayers are paying $1,358 on average per abortion, according to the report.
Here’s more from the local news:
Records of the number of abortion reimbursement requests Illinois News Network obtained through an open records request from the Illinois Department of Health and Family Services showed 84 abortions from January to June last year. The same time period this year, there were 314 abortions. That’s a 274 percent increase of taxpayer-funded abortions.
State Rep. Peter Breen, who opposed taxpayer-funded abortions, said the state law he’s challenging in the courts that went into effect Jan. 1 is the cause for the spike.
“By the time this program gets ramped up, these numbers are going to be ten times what these preliminary numbers are,” said Breen, R-Lombard.
According to the data, Illinois taxpayers have been charged $426,583 for 314 abortions so far in 2018. Breen said there likely are more that have not yet been reported because abortion groups have 180 days to submit a claim.
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Pro-lifers are challenging the law in court based on state procedural and budgetary issues.
The Thomas More Society, which is representing Illinois taxpayers in the case, said taxpayers could be forced to spend $15 million to $30 million a year on abortions in the future. Pro-life groups predicted as many as 12,000 abortions a year could be paid for by state tax dollars.
“Regardless of your feelings about abortion, it is incredibly fiscally irresponsible to enact a law designed to spend millions of dollars that Illinois does not have,” Breen said when the lawsuit was filed. “The state legislative process has steps that must be correctly followed in order to prevent budget-busting laws like this from being ramrodded through. It is part of our civic process of checks and balances.”
Polls consistently show that a strong majority of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, including those who identify as pro-choice.
