Senate Bill Could Put More Limitations on Abortions for Medicaid Patients

Committee discusses possible complications of bill limiting reasons for abortions

Tools

By Lacie Grosvold

Story Created: Mar 14, 2013 at 6:28 AM AKDT

Story Updated: Mar 15, 2013 at 9:20 AM AKDT

ANCHORAGE - The Alaska State Senate is considering legislation that would restrict abortion funding under Medicaid.

Senate Bill 49 would apply to Medicaid patients. In order to qualify for an abortion, their physician would have to sign off on the procedure, and explain that it was medically necessary. Medicaid would also pay if the pregnancy were the result of a rape or incest.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday, senators questioned Commissioner William Streur of the Department of Health and Social Services.

They discussed what would happen if a woman told her doctor her pregnancy was the result of rape. Committee members wondered whether those statements would be further investigated. Senator Lesil McGuire (R-Anchorage) expressed concern about the cost and toll of investigating those claims. She said, "I would hope that we're not going to be expending state resources to investigate women and question those kind of things and go on witch hunts if a woman states to her doctor that she has been raped, or has been, sadly, in a case of incest."

Senator Fred Dyson (R-Eagle River) cautioned that this might create dishonesty. He prefaced his comments by saying, "This will make me misunderstood, will make me a target for folks that think that men are all the villain in this, as we close up the discussion [of the] description of what is medically necessary. There have been and there will be women who realize that they don't meet that who will say, ‘I was raped, and therefore the government needs to pay for it.’ I know those are very rare, I only know of a couple, three, in 25 years, but those things can go both ways unfortunately."

Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood testified against the bill, saying it could deter or delay an abortion, which could continue dangerous pregnancies or push women into a second trimester, which would require out-of-state abortions.

Nothing was decided on the bill. It will be brought up again on Friday along with resolutions.

You have indicated this comment should be removed.

Close

The comment has been submitted for review. Thank you .

Raven33 said on Thursday, Mar 14 at 5:32 PM

Innocent babies shouldn't be killed for convinience!

116024571
Inappropriate? Alert Us!

Add a comment

Name:

Comment: 1000 Characters Left

KTVA CBS 11 | Anchorage, Alaska News and Weather and its affiliated companies are not responsible for the content of comments posted or for anything arising out of use of the above comments or other interaction among the users. We reserve the right to screen, refuse to post, remove or edit user-generated content at any time and for any or no reason in our absolute and sole discretion without prior notice, although we have no duty to do so or to monitor any Public Forum.
This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled. Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.