Republican House Leader Paul “Skip” Stam has a message for local governments that plan to keep funding elective abortions with taxpayer dollars: a lawsuit is coming.
Stam made the pledge minutes after the Wake County Board of Commissioners voted Monday along party lines to restore the county’s policy of covering medically unnecessary abortions in health care plans. Democrats on the board managed to reinstate the coverage after Commissioner Harold Webb, at home recovering from a stroke, phoned in his vote.
“There will be [a lawsuit], but in which county it will be and what month is a tactical question for whoever the lawyer and plaintiffs will be,” Stam said.
The Wake County Republican also had strong words for the four Democrats who voted to re-fund the procedure. “They’ve taken themselves down a path to a very minority status at the request of a Planned Parenthood lawyer,” he said.
CIGNA HealthCare provides Wake’s health insurance plan, which also covers contraception and vasectomies. Commissioners’ tied vote Feb. 15 let stand a decision by county staff to pay for abortions only for medically necessary reasons, such as to save the mother’s life.
Norwalk, a Democrat, took exception to that vote and offered a resolution Monday restoring the funding. Carolina Journal reported last week that Wake Democratic Party Chairman Jack Nichols wrote the resolution for Norwalk. Nichols also is the top lawyer for Planned Parenthood Health Systems in Raleigh.
Wake taxpayers have footed the bill for about a dozen abortions since 1999, according to county staff.
The policy isn’t confined to Wake. The state’s most populous urban centers — including the Triangle, Triad, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg area — cover elective abortions into the second trimester. A number of local governments subsequently have scuttled the coverage amid concerns that it violates a state Supreme Court ruling from 1981.
That decision, Stam v. State of North Carolina, found that the General Assembly never gave counties the authority to use local tax dollars to pay for the procedure for indigent women. The American Civil Liberties Union and UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government have released separate legal briefs arguing the ruling doesn’t prohibit the coverage for health insurance purposes.
But Stam, who litigated the case three decades ago, said it gives “persuasive” evidence that abortion funding in health care plans is outlawed. He added that commissioners who voted in favor of the funding don’t “understand the history of this case.”
Stam has taken aim at abortion coverage for teachers and state government employees, too. He offered a budget amendment last year that would have banned abortion coverage except when the mother’s life is endangered or in cases of rape or incest. But House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, ruled it out of order.
The amendment mirrored a federal version, sponsored by former Republican U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, that bars federal employee health plans from paying for abortions. Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has prohibited abortion coverage through Medicaid.
During a public comment period Monday, commissioners got an earful from both sides in the debate.
“I speak with women on a weekly basis as a result of their abortion. I can firmly say without a doubt that abortion hurts women, abortion hurts men,” said Tonya Nelson, who runs a pro-life pregnancy center in Fuquay-Varina.
Melissa Reed, vice president of Planned Parenthood Health Systems, said that abortion coverage is standard in health insurance policies. “The decision to have an abortion is a difficult one, but I hope you can agree that it is a decision best left up to a woman, her doctor, her family, and her faith provider, and not the Wake County commissioners,” she said.
Other speakers took aim at commissioners by name. Raleigh resident Art Wilson called comments Norwalk made to CJ about abortions saving taxpayer funds since they are cheaper than bringing a pregnancy to term “contemptible.”
“You should be ashamed,” Wilson said.
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.