Nope, it was passed in 1981, forcing the state to use its matching funds in Medicare to cover abortions, as the Hyde amendment forbade using Fed funds.
What would the common name for the MA state law you are referencing? It wouldn't be Romneycare, would it? [Character Counts, post #272]
Nope, it was passed in 1981, forcing the state to use its matching funds in Medicare to cover abortions, as the Hyde amendment forbade using Fed funds. [A. Hun, post #363]
Well, let's look @ your mistakes & incompletions here...and I'll follow this up with another post directed @ your post #30 comments...
#1 it's medicaid -- not medicare
#2 The 1981 MA Supreme Court case [Mary Moe vs. Secretary of Education & Finance] didn't cover abortions in MA carte-blanche...
The decision placed an undefined "medically-necessary" adjective before it [Moe, p. 660]
Tell us, A. Hun, what you would you -- or a governor who claimed to be "personally" "pro-life" -- deem as abortions which are "medically necessary?" [Would that be everything? Abortion on demand?]
Certainly, the case decision itself [you can see it @ http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/382/382mass629.html] references that as of 1980, MA state law allowed for "life of the mother" exceptions and that medicaid coverage included "rape and incest" [ONLY] (see Moe, pp. 636, 644). As of 1980, that was hardly "carte blanche" abortion coverage.
#3 You can note a few other relevant comments from that decision:
The majority, having decided this case on a due process approach, recognized that there was no necessity to examine the plaintiffs' assertions that the legislation violates the provision in our State Constitution for equal protection of the laws... (p. 663)
The 1981 decision actually even mentioned a few concessions which are opposite of the impression you left:
The plaintiffs here correctly do not contend that they have a right to public funding of abortions. See Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464 (1977). They also rightly concede the State's privilege to choose to fund no medical expenses of indigent persons, including expenses associated with pregnancy. They simply contend that the State may not provide for the payment of medically necessary expenses of childbirth, but simultaneously refuse to fund the medically necessary expenses of therapeutic abortion. (Moe, p. 661)
...the State has no constitutional duty to provide medical expenses for abortion or any other medical need (Moe, p. 663)