For women seeking abortions in Missouri, things just got even harder. For years, the state assisted low-income women in paying for family planning through a Medicaid program called Extended Women’s Health Services—a program funded by both the federal and state government. But now, a new law rejects $8.3 million in federal funds to the women’s health program, which means the state can now block all organizations in the state that provide abortions, including hospitals.
Other states, including Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Indiana, have tried to exclude abortion providers from Medicaid funds before, but courts have said that would violate a federal law that gives patients the right to choose their health care providers. Missouri hopes to get around that by rejecting the federal money. The rule has not been challenged in court.
Missouri's Medicaid program for women's health services currently serves nearly 70,000 low-income patients.
To make up for the lost federal funds, the state is increasing its own funding of women's health services for low-income residents. Under the new measure, Missouri will spend $8.3 million to create its own program in place of the federal program it has opted out of.
Many hospitals and other organizations will find their services impacted under the law. As a way of establishing eligibility for funds, the state government sent letters to five hundred different hospitals, clinics and service providers whom have the qualifications to perform abortions requiring them to attest that they do not perform abortion services. If they do not sign the forms, they will no longer be eligible for state funds for women’s health services. And, as is commonplace with similar restrictive measures in other states, this law does not include an exception for organizations that provide abortions to save the mother’s life.
The measure was introduced several years ago after videos emerged allegedly showing the sale of fetal tissue by Planned Parenthood employees in Texas. What’s important to remember about those videos is that they were never proven to be true and yet states continue to use them as an excuse to roll back access to safe, legal abortions.
A grand jury found no evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood and instead indicted two people who recorded the videos for tampering with a government record and illegally offering to purchase human organs. The indictments were later dismissed on technical grounds.
This is beyond shameful. Women’s health, well-being and access to reproductive justice all decided without their consent and at the whim of uninformed anti-choice activists in government.