“Mitt Romney is not for funding abortions.”
Really? The below is from a post by Brices Crossroads elsewhere in FR:
On Abortion: When Romney took office in 2003, under the law in Massachusetts, enacted by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Moe v. Secretary of Admin.& Finance, 382 Mass. 629, 417 N.E.2d 387 (Mass. 1981), the taxpayers of Massachusetts were forced to subsidize ONLY abortions performed on Medicaid eligible women. In 2003, there were 4,859 publicly funded abortions in Massachusetts, according to the Massachusetts Citizens for Life. link
In 2003, there were 25,741 total abortions performed in Massachusetts. link
Post-RomneyCare, the state forces every Massachusetts taxpayer to fund every abortion performed on any Massachusetts resident for a very modest $50 copay. Thus, under Romney Care, the number of abortions that will be funded on the backs of the taxpaying citizens of Massachusetts will be at least 500% more than the number when he took office (approx. 25,000 versus 5,000).
Romney’s answer to this is as predictable as it is disingenuous: The Courts made me do it. The Court in Moe did no such thing. The court did not require the legislature to subsidize health care. In finding that the state had to cover abortions for Medicaid eligible women in the same way it covered child bearing, the Court was explicit that: “... the legislature need not subsidize any of the costs associated with child bearing or with health care generally. Once it chooses to enter the Constitutionally protected area of choice, it must do so with genuine indifference.” This is Massachusetts double speak which is translated: “If you do not want to have universal funding of abortion on demand, then do not pass a universal and mandatory health care program.” Romney could have avoided this five fold increase in publicly funded abortions which was put across on his watch and with his enthusiastic support, by vetoing the whole plan. Instead, he chose to sacrifice the lives of unborn children (and to require the taxpayers of Massachusetts to pay for it) on the altar of compulsory, yes socialized, health care. All the bromides about an unpassable Constitutional Human Life Amendment cannot conceal the fact that, when he could have done something to prevent an increase in abortion, Romney not only did nothing. He actually cooperated with it. At the signing ceremony attended by Ted Kennedy, in April 2006 (after his supposed conversion to a prolife position), the mood was ebullient, according to the news reports:
Sorry, but that is wrong. A lot of people make that mistake. The Mass. Health care plan is not a single-payer government health care program. Most people still purchase their own insurance through private insurers, or have it purchased through their employers.
Only poor people who don't have employer insurance and can't afford private insurance directly would get subsidized or fully-paid for insurance. This is the same group that was covered by medicaid, and some number more getting subsidies, some who might have been covered under programs like SCHIP or other state programs.
So the number of people who actually get money from the government to pay for part or all of their insurance will be larger than the medicaid number, but much smaller than the total number of insured.
That's the first mistake.
The second mistake is assuming that only medicaid poor got abortions paid for by the government. In fact, there were also poor people who did not go under medicaid but who did not have insurance and still obtained abortions, through free clinics or other sources that receive indirect or direct funding under programs financed by the state. Planned Parenthood gets a lot of money from the state,for example, a small part of which does help fund abortions for people who don't otherwise get covered by medicaid.
The Mass. Health care plan was meant to eliminate this form of government funding which is hard to control.
And in all cases, the medical insurance was required to cover abortions, something Romney had no say over. There is no evidence Romney wanted to fund general abortions.
However, I would guess (it's my own guess) that since Romney supports abortion to save a mother's life, that he would probably support government health insurance COVERING such a procedure.
As I said many times when Thompson did his hit pieces on the "$50 abortion", THompson supported abortion for rape, incest, and to save the mother's life, and I couldn't imagine he would deny abortions for those cases to poor people by eliminating the coverage from their insurance.
I don't support rape and incest exceptions. I do support life-of-the-mother exceptions. But I've supported candidates who support rape-and-incest exceptions, because at this time the fight is over Roe, not WHAT restrictions will be pushed post-Roe.