In 25 years, California taxpayers paid over half a billion dollars for abortion

According to an analysis of California’s Fee for Service (FFS) Program, which funds abortions, California taxpayers have spent more than half a billion dollars on abortions committed in the state since 1989. Live Action News reviewed reports published by Medi-Cal, a California state tax funded program for low-income children and adults, and found that in just the state’s Fee for Service (FFS) Program, taxpayers paid nearly $700 million for abortions over 25 years, from 1989 to 2014.

As you can see from the chart above, actual taxpayer-funded abortion totals were unavailable until the year 2000. Between 2000 and 2014, California billed the taxpayers for nearly 840,000 abortions, which cost more than $358 million.

Under the federal Hyde Amendment, federal tax dollars cannot fund abortions except in specific circumstances, but tax dollars can fund the same facilities and staff that commit abortions. Many Americans are unaware that their hard-earned tax dollars often fund abortions at the state level.

Taxpayer Funding of Abortion at Planned Parenthood

2000 to 2014

In 2000, Medi-Cal funded a total of 45,794 fee-for-service (FFS) abortions, paying an average of $322 per procedure, totaling $14,754,481 for all abortions. FFS taxpayer-funded abortions from 2000 broke down by race as follows:

• White: 12,078

• Hispanic: 15,550

• Black: 5,866

• Asian and Pacific Islander: 2,078

• Alaskan Native/American Indian: 278

• Not reported: 9,944

In 2014, Medi-Cal funded a total of 53,907 fee-for-service (FFS) abortions, paying an average of $512 per procedure, totaling $27,591,381 for all abortions. Taxpayers in Los Angeles County paid the largest portion of state taxpayer-funded Medi-Cal FFS abortions in 2014, accounting for 19,166 abortions (nearly 40 percent)– a total of $10,148,369 billed to state taxpayers.

2014 FFS tax funded abortions broke down by race as follows:

• White: 2,512

• Hispanic: 6,331

• Black: 1,554

• Other: 74

• Not reported: 42,504

Abortions by type

Abortions by procedure were reported beginning in 2003. Documents show that from 2003 to 2014, over 80,000 later term abortions (D&E abortions) were taxpayer-funded.

Live Action News has previously documented that approximately 100,000 late second and third trimester abortions are reported nationally every year. Watch as Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, explains a second trimester D&E abortion in the video below:

2nd Trimester Surgical Abortion: Dilation and Evacuation (D & E)

Previous Live Action News reports indicate that in several states including New Mexico, taxpayers end up funding late-term abortions (after the 20th week of pregnancy) done for any reason the woman desires. It is important to note that these abortions are not being committed solely for health reasons, as is often suggested by abortion proponents and the media.

The State of California does not publish its abortion numbers, which is why they are not included in the abortion totals from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). (In 2014, 652,639 abortions were reported to the CDC from 49 reporting areas, excluding California, Maryland, and New Hampshire. In 2015, the number of abortions decreased to 638,169 for the same 49 reporting areas.)

Although 2015 data is not yet available, the Guttmacher Institute, a former “special affiliate” of Planned Parenthood, which claims to contact abortion facilities nationwide for their figures, reported a total of 926,200 abortions nationwide in 2014. In addition, Guttmacher published the following abortion statistics for California:

• In 2014, some 157,350 abortions were provided in California, though not all abortions that occurred in California were provided to state residents, as some patients may have traveled from other states; likewise, some individuals from California may have traveled to another state for an abortion.

• There was a 15% decline in the abortion rate in California between 2011 and 2014, from 23 to 19.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age.

• Abortions in California represent 17.0% of all abortions in the United States.

For years, Guttmacher has been the only source for abortion numbers in California, and their research reveals the following:

According to data published by the Guttmacher Institute in December of 2018, “16 states use their own funds to pay for all or most medically necessary abortions for Medicaid enrollees in the state….”  Live Action News has previously documented that more than half of abortions in Medicaid-coverage states are taxpayer funded.

From 2000-2005, between three and four percent of women in California who received taxpayer-funded abortions had at least one prior abortion. (See figures here: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005.) Data for California is not available past 2005 for this statistic. (Interestingly, New York women also have been found to have repeated abortions on the taxpayer’s dime.)

In January of 2018, a Knights of Columbus-Marist poll found that six in ten Americans opposed using tax dollars to pay for abortions. A previous poll from 2017 had similar results, according to the Daily Signal, which wrote that, “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.” In 2016, voters again reiterated their disdain for tax funded abortions. The poll, conducted by Politico and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, revealed that 58% of voters opposed allowing Medicaid funding to be used for abortion services.