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Abortion Opponents Object to Bill Aimed at Expanding Access to Reproductive Care

Patty Wight
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MPBN
Helen Regan of the group Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights, or GRR.

AUGUSTA, Maine - The Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee is considering a bill to increase women's access to reproductive health care. Supporters, who turned out for a press conference and a public hearing on the bill, say it's one way to improve women's economic security. But opponents object to the use of taxpayer dollars to fund organizations that profit from abortions.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a U.S. non-profit that works to advance reproductive health, women spend about three decades of their lives trying to avoid unintended pregnancies. But in Maine, about 40 percent of pregnancies are unintended. Around the country the figure is even higher: about 50 percent.

And when it comes to women living at or below the federal poverty level, unintended pregnancies occur at more than five times the rate of women at the highest income levels.
 

Credit Patty Wight / MPBN
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MPBN
Rep. Jay McCreight, sponsor of LD 319, makes her case for the bill at a news conference Thursday in Augusta.

"This has significant implications for social mobility and is associated with higher poverty rates, less family stability, and worse outcomes for children," says Jay McCreight. The Democratic representative is sponsor of LD 319, which would expand reproductive health coverage to all Maine women who who earn below 209 percent of the poverty level. Currently, women only qualify at that income level when they become pregnant.  

"I am a strong, strong advocate for this bill based on my life experience," says Helen Regan. Regan part of the group Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights, or GRR. She's retired now, but used to work as an educator. She says the ability to decide when to have children allowed her to have a gratifying career, which she says also paid off.
 
"I paid hundreds of thousands - I just figured this out - maybe millions of dollars, in taxes," she says, "federal, state, income, property and sales tax over the course of my life, and I've been able to pay back to society though those taxes because I was able to work without a break."

This is the crux of the argument for this bill: that the ability of women to control when and if to have children has a dramatic effect on their economic security and on the larger economy. Nicole Clegg of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England says the bill is an opportunity to reduce the need for public assistance. "There's really no other measure that the Legislature is going to consider this session that's going to have as dramatic an impact on public assistance as this one will."

That's a notion that Republican Sen. Roger Katz supports. He's a co-sponsor of the bill, and he also sits on the Legislature's Appropriations Committee. "And we spend half our time scraping for dollars to spend on things like pre-K, or higher education, or workforce development, or fixing potholes. And anytime we can find money somewhere we tend to grab it. Well, this bill will help us do that."

The bill is estimated to save the state about $100,000 in the first year, and between $2 million and $3 million in three years. But that doesn't get around the fact, says Trish Morin of the Maine Right to Life Committee, that taxpayer money would be used to benefit organizations that profit from abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.

Besides, Morin says, there are other options for low income women. "It is our understanding that the Affordable Care Act, which is available to all Maine citizens, currently covers reproductive health care and family planning."

This was the reason Gov. Paul LePage vetoed a similar bill last year. But Kate Brogan of Maine Family Planning says even though the Affordable Care Act has expanded insurance coverage, there are still low-income Mainers who can't afford it.

"What we know from Massachusetts, where there's been an insurance mandate for years, is that a lot of people stay uninsured, and a lot of people have periods of uninsurance," Brogan says. "And those are the people that we want to catch."

Brogan says 30 other states have passed similar measures, and all have saved money, as well as reduced rates of unplanned pregnancies and abortion.

The Health and Human Services Committee will consider the bill further during a work session on Thursday, April 2.