The Maryland Senate once again upheld long-standing Maryland policy on abortion, and rejected an effort to further restrict Medicaid funding of abortions for poor women.
Six anti-abortion Democrats joined 13 Republicans in supporting a budget amendment by Sen. Alex Mooney, R-Frederick, that would restrict taxpayer funding of abortions to cases of rape, incest and protecting the life of the mother. The vote was 19-27.
In addition to these exceptions, Maryland currently will pay for abortions that also protect the “mental health of the mother” as certified by a physician. Abortion opponents consider that last exception a major loophole, but it has been in state law since 1978, according to Majority Leader Edward Kasemeyer, D-Baltimore-Howard.
Mooney has offered the amendment before to conform to federal funding standards, and while he personally supports even further restrictions, “Roe v. Wade is the law of the land,” he said.
The current budget language on Medicaid forces abortion opponents “to pay for the killing of innocent human life,” Mooney said. “That?s not health care, that?s killing.”
Sen. Delores Kelley, D-Baltimore County, said the matter had been decided in a 1992 referendum. “The voters did speak,” allowing abortions in the first trimester, Kelley said, adding that poor women were not coming in to get abortions willy-nilly.
“We need to keep doing what we?ve been doing,” Kelley said.
Democratic senators voting for the abortion restrictions were: James Ed DeGrange, Anne Arundel; Ray Dyson, St. Mary?s; Patrick Hogan, Montgomery; Thomas Middleton, Charles; Douglas Peters, Prince George?s; and Norman Stone, Baltimore County.
