Gutierrez 1

Emily Gutierrez
English 1102-096
T. Sotriakopulos
19 May 2016
Federal Funding Gone Wrong, so They Say
For many, many years there has been an issue amongst vast amounts of the population as
far as where the funding for abortions come from, and how they should not even be legal. It is
clear that not everyone is pro-choice, and not everyone is pro-life, and there is always going to
be two different arguments coming for each side. Some may argue that abortions are wrong, and
that it is not fair to the taxpayers because it is coming out of their pay check, which they have
worked very hard for. And others suggest that people who think like that, are being misinformed,
and that they should further look into what they have been hearing for all these years. Regardless
of the amount of proven facts, non-proven facts, it should be under much consideration that
abortions are not in fact federally funded, and only a very small amount of the procedures are.
There is no in between when it comes to problems like abortions and its funding. Many
believe that it is funded directly by the government and through large amounts of researches that
has been proven to actually not be true. In the article, Are American taxpayers paying for
abortions, the author, Chris Covoner discusses how abortions are indeed not paid from the tax
payers pockets only a very limited number of them are. If we tote up all these components, we
find that federal taxpayers cover roughly 6.6% of abortion costs (Covoner. P3). Although, he
proves it to be somewhat federally funded, its not as much as most think it comes out to be. Its
simply due to the fact that the women that are on Medicaid, and later find themselves pregnant,

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thats where the whole idea of tax payers money coming in comes from, because everyone
knows that Medicaid is directly funded from the government.
According to a Guttmacher Institute survey in 2011, 69% of abortions are paid for
entirely out of pocket. Another 15.6% report using Medicaid, while 7.3% used a non-Medicaid
source of coverage (although this 2011 survey did not indicate the type of coverageemployersponsored or non-group, etc.). 8.6% reported not knowing whether they used third party
coverage (Covoner. P1). Showing that almost nearly 70% of abortions are paid out of pocket,
just proves that in fact, tax-payers only seem to be paying a small portion of abortions. Its clear
that most abortions have always been paid out of pocket. This article just goes into depth of the
different reasons as to why the government might directly fund abortions. One being, its only
allowed within certain circumstances.
The Hyde Amendment is a rider to the annual Labor/Health and Human Services
(HHS)/Education appropriations bill which prevents Medicaid and any other programs under
these departments from funding abortions, except in limited cases (Covoner. P1). When he
states limited cases, Covoner is referring to rape, incest, and other cases as such. Even though the
Hyde Amendment prevents patients under Medicaid to receive abortions that were not caused by
one of the reasons stated above, people do indeed still take advantage of the opportunity.
Medicaid would be liable for an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 additional abortions every
year (Covoner. P1). 300,000-500,000 abortions are a large amount of abortions allowed a year
even though it isnt allowed. It is likely that most women getting abortions under Medicaid, were
not raped, or their life endanger. It is the governments job to further look into situations of such,
because it would most likely result to the finding that women were just getting abortions just to

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get them. And if the government were to be a bit more careful, they would be able to save some
of the tax payers money, and then that would not be such an issue amongst many.
Planned parenthood is another issue that causes a lot of controversy not only within the
population, but politicians. Politicians focus a lot (strictly conservatives) on how planned
parenthood should not be a directly funded from the government because the money goes to
abortions. In many cases that is not true. The author of the article, How does planned parenthood
spend the government money? states many ways how the money isnt going directly to abortions,
and that only a very limited of it does.
Last year, Planned Parenthood received about 528.2 million dollars from the government.
The overwhelming majority of Planned Parenthood's services involve screening for and treating
sexually transmitted diseases and infections, as well as providing contraception (Keltzburger.
P1). Most of the money goes into service of the ones stated above, and it just shows that this
program is not entirely about abortions. Keltzburger goes into detail on how only 3% of the
money goes into abortions, which isnt nearly as much as many make it out to be. Planned
parenthoods main focus is STI/HIV testing. Thats where most of the money goes into.
Title X and Medicaid are programs that target low- to middle-income Americans, and
many of Planned Parenthood's patients are likewise lower-income (Keltzburger. p1). She also
goes into detail the type of women that go on in to get help. Like stated, many of the women tend
to be of lower income, and maybe that could be one of the reasons why so much money is
directly funded into programs of these types.
Of course many disagree with these types of arguments. In the article, 4 ways planned
parenthood has billed taxpayers into elective abortions, it states the complete contrary of my
article above. The author mentions how states like New York, and Washington bills its taxpayers

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for abortions. Some of these audits have demonstrated that Planned Parenthood has billed
federal Medicaid for abortions (Mattox. P1). Only some, as in 3%. HHS found that hundreds
of thousands of abortion-related claims were billed unlawfully to Medicaid by improperly
labeling them family planning and thus receiving the higher federal share of the
reimbursement (Mattox. P1). When Mattox claims it to be billed unlawfully, he means that
abortions were being preformed under the wrong circumstances, and going back to the Hyde
Amendment, it is only allowed under certain circumstances such as rape, incest, mothers life
endanger, etc.
In some rare cases, taxpayers are paying for abortions, but for the wrong reasons because
people are going through the process incorrectly. The auditors believed that this provider billed
for at least 3,900 abortions during the audit period, improperly labeling them as family
planning, and thus federal taxpayers paid them at a 90 percent rate (Mattox. P1). Improperly
labeling abortions, is getting in all this money from these hardworking citizens, when they
should not even be preformed at all.
Connecting with the article above, the reading, State Funding of Abortion Under
Medicaid goes further into depth on the reasons why, and which states allow abortions under
Medicaid. It states that only 32 states, and the District of Columbia follow the standards and
provide abortions for women that were in certain situations (State funding of Abortion Under
Medicaid). By law, those 32 states cannot allow a woman to get abortions under Medicaid due to
the Hyde Amendment. 17 states have a policy that directs Medicaid to pay for all or most
medically necessary abortions (State Funding of Abortion Under Medicaid). Like previously
stated, Medicaid is government funded health care, and states are making Medicaid cover the

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abortion costs, in a way it is the state forcing its taxpayers to fund procedures as such. It isnt
something that is known within the U.S for Medicaid to provide coverage on abortions.
Coverage for Abortion Services in Medicaid, Marketplace Plans and Private Plans
written by Alina Salganicoff discusses the many different ways that abortions are funded and
how many lower income women, cant afford to pay for these procedures. Though many of the
procedures happen within first trimester, a lot also get abortions around 9-10 weeks (Salganioff).
The sooner they get operated, the less money it would be. An abortion around that time is about
$300-$500 which is not something that is easily paid for so many women use such programs as
the ACA Marketplace Plan. The ACA prohibits plans in the state Marketplaces from
discriminating against any provider because of unwillingness to provide abortions
(Salganicoff). Which means that regardless of the rules certain states may have, coverage must
be provided.
Further into the piece, she states that insurers may provide coverage, but pay from private
dollars, not federal dollars (Salganicoff). Not only did she state that insurers cover abortions, also
that it isnt money thats coming directly from the taxpayers pocket which has been the issue all
along.
For my field research, I conducted a survey through the website Survey Monkey on
abortions. Out of every student in the class, only 13 participated, but it was very interesting to
see the results from both males and females. 10 females took the survey, and only 3 males did.
About 92% where around the ages of 18-24, and 7% where 25 and older.
I began with the question if they were either pro-choice or pro-life. 23.08% chose prolife, 61.1% choose pro-choice, and 15% were neither. Than I further proceeded with the question
that many conservative politicians believe that abortions are federally funded, and asked to the

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people participating in my survey agreed. 9 disagreed, and stated that they were not which is
more than half, and only 4 people agreed with that statement which makes it a little less than
31%. Following that question, I thought it would be interesting to see why those 4 people agreed
with that statement, and I was surprised to find out that many of them talked over the issue of
planned parenthood. Planned parenthood gets beyond mistaken when it comes to the thought of
abortions. Many believe that is a program which all the half a billion dollars it receives annually,
goes straight to abortion, and it even surprised me to find out only 3% of that money actually
goes into that procedure.
Reading the responses made me think a lot over the study of abortions and its funding,
and it really helped out through this essay. Its interesting to see the stance everyone had on such
a broad, extensive issue such as abortion.
Throughout much research and thought, it is safe to believe that in most cases, abortions
are not federally funded. The media, politicians, the internet, and many others tend to pay so
much attention to that fact, that many citizens throughout the United States believe these claimed
statements. Seemingly, that both sides, pro-life or pro-choice, will never come to a set agreement
its clear that it is both something far more than just agreeing on the topic of a baby and its right
to live or not. Ranging from how its funded to the right a woman has to control what she does to
her body, and not having the government deny that right. It is such broad topic with many other
factors that come along with it, but a topic that should be further looked into as opposed to just
letting the news/media/certain public figures take advantage of ones mind.
.

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Emily Gutierrez
English 1102-096
T. Sotriakopulos
19 May 2016
Works Cited
Covoner, Chris. "Are American Taxpayers Paying For Abortion?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 2
Oct. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Kurtzleben, Danielle. "Fact Check: How Does Planned Parenthood Spend That Government
Money?" NPR. NPR, 5 Aug. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Mattox, Casey. "4 Ways Planned Parenthood Billls Taxpayers For Abortions." The Federalist.
N.p., 14 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
Salganicoff, Alina. "Coverage for Abortion Services in Medicaid, Marketplace Plans and
Private Plans." Coverage for Abortion Services in Medicaid, Marketplace Plans and
Private Plans. N.p., 20 Jan. 2016. Web. 19 May 2016.
"State Funding of Abortion Under Medicaid." Guttmacher Institute. N.p., 14 Mar. 2016. Web. 19
May 2016.

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Link for Survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NFC2385