An analysis of California’s Fee for Service (FFS) Program has revealed that California taxpayers have spent more than half a billion dollars to fund abortions in the state since 1989. Reports published by Medi-Cal, a California state tax-funded program for low-income children and adults, revealed that in the state’s Fee for Service (FFS) Program alone, taxpayers paid nearly $700 million for abortions from 1989 to 2014. While information about the total amount taxpayers spent to fund abortions was not made available until 2000, between 2000 and 2014, taxpayers were billed for 840,000 abortions, costing them $358 million. These numbers are troubling, as even if an individual is opposed to abortion, he is still being forced to support the procedure through taxpayer-funding.
While the Hyde Amendment prevents federal tax dollars from funding abortions, except for cases of rape or life of the mother, abortion facilities and staff members that commit abortions can still be supported through taxpayer dollars. Americans are still being forced to fund abortions at a state level, as in 2014, Los Angeles County taxpayers paid for a majority of the state’s Medi-Cal FFS abortions, as the 19,166 abortions performed racked up a bill of $10,148,369 for state taxpayers.
While abortions were not reported by procedure until 2003, data from 2003 to 2014 shows that taxpayer funds also went towards over 80,000 late-term abortions performed in this period. Abortions duirng this stage are typically done using the Dilation and Evacuation method, where the the baby is dismembered and has its limbs pulled apart by forceps.
A Marist poll from 2018 concluded that six in ten Americans oppose using tax dollars to pay for abortions, and a previous poll from 2017 had similar results. As The Daily Signal reported on the findings:
When polled, 61 percent of Americans opposed using tax dollars to fund abortions within the United States, while 83 percent of respondents opposed subsidizing abortions outside of the United States.
