States Funding Abortions

According to a recent Guttmacher Institute report¹, state and federal tax dollars paid for 177,404 abortions in 2006, at a cost of $89 million.

State governments paid $88.8 million, primarily in states that have “nonrestrictive” policies for funding abortions. These states permit the use of tax dollars to pay for all “medically necessary” abortions provided to Medicaid clients. The term “medically necessary” is obviously not very limiting, as indicated by the 94,602 abortions in California, the 34,824 abortions in New York, the 15,510 abortions in Washington, and the 9918 abortions in New Jersey funded by taxpayers in 2006.

In total, state governments paid for 177,213 abortions in 2006, nearly all occurring in California, New York, Washington, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, Minnesota, Maryland, New Mexico, Virginia, Hawaii and Iowa. All of these states except Virginia and Iowa have “nonrestrictive” abortion policies, seven of them imposed by court order and four of them voluntary. Iowa and Virginia’s policies allow taxpayer funded abortions in cases of life, rape, incest and additional “rare” circumstances.

Other states with court-ordered “nonrestrictive” policies are Alaska, Arizona, Illinois, Montana, Vermont and West Virginia, but these states reported little or no state-funded abortions. Indiana, Mississippi, Utah and Wisconsin, with policies similar to those of Virginia and Iowa, also reported very few state-funded abortions. The remaining 27 states and the District of Columbia all have “restrictive” policies, only allowing state funds to be used for abortions in cases of life, rape and incest.

1. Sonfield, A., Alrich, C., Gold, R.B., Public Funding for Family Planning, Sterilization and Abortion Services, FY 1980-2006, Occasional Report No. 38, January 2008

[05/29/08]