Even as lawmakers in many states have taken action to protect and preserve unborn life, the Maryland Legislature is working to pave the way for an expansion of abortions. By overriding Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of House Bill 937, the Abortion Care Access Act, they have staked out one of the most extreme pro-abortion positions in the nation.
For starters, the legislation provides $3.5 million annually to create a new Abortion Clinical Care Training Program, designed to “expand the number of health care professionals with abortion training.” The legislation included no findings stating that Maryland currently lacks an adequate number of healthcare providers. Instead, lawmakers just decided to use taxpayer dollars to increase the number of abortionists in the state, creating a culture of death rather than a culture of life.
After using taxpayer dollars to expand abortion training, the bill also expanded the number of providers who can perform abortions, since so many doctors won’t do it.
In his veto message, Hogan rightly noted that allowing nonphysicians to conduct abortions “risks lowering the high standard of reproductive health care services received by women in Maryland,” given the possibility of complications that could require a physician’s attention. Lowering the credential requirements for abortionists seems particularly unnecessary, given the simultaneous creation of the new taxpayer-funded abortion training program. Yet lawmakers did so anyway.
Finally, the bill includes a provision requiring most insurers to cover abortion procedures while prohibiting them from imposing “a deductible, co-insurance, co-payment, or any other cost-sharing requirement.” This provision means that Marylanders will pay higher insurance premiums to fund a procedure to which many of them object.
But these insurance mandates don’t just mean the bill violates “pro-choice” principles. By making abortion “free” — no deductibles, no copayments, no cost-sharing whatsoever — it also provides a financial inducement for women to abort their pregnancies, especially for low-income women. It creates a choice between a delivery, with a co-payment of hundreds of dollars, and a “free” abortion funded by others’ higher insurance premiums.
As the mother of a child born with a disability, my heart grieves for Maryland families following the passage of this legislation. The lawmakers who voted to override Hogan’s veto don’t see abortion as a last resort — far too many of them see it as the first option.
Sadly, most of the families affected by this new pro-abortion legislation could come from low-income and black communities within Maryland. At a time when leftist politicians echo their support for Black Lives Matter, few apparently want to apply that principle to the unborn.
But until our culture develops respect for the least among us — the poorest and most vulnerable, including the unborn — we cannot achieve true equality as a society. On that front, the override of Hogan’s veto will only take Maryland backward.
Mary Vought is the founder of Vought Strategies. You can follow her on Twitter: @MaryVought.
