Nor would a denial of Medicaid funding for abortion achieve our objectives. Given Roe against Wade, it would be nothing more than an attempt to do indirectly what the law says cannot be done directly; and worse than that, it would do it in a way that would burden only the already disadvantaged. Removing funding from the Medicaid program would not prevent the rich and middle classes from having abortions. It would not even assure that the disadvantaged wouldn't have them; it would only impose financial burdens on poor women who want abortions.
And apart from that unevenness, there's a more basic question. Medicaid is designed to deal with health and medical needs. But the arguments for the cutoff of Medicaid abortion funds are not related to those needs: They're moral arguments. If we assume that there are health and medical needs, our personal view of morality ought not to be considered a relevant basis for discrimination.
We must keep in mind always that we are a nation of laws -- when we like those laws and when we don’t. The Supreme Court has established a woman's constitutional right to abortion -- whether we like it or not. The Congress has decided that the federal government doesn't have to provide federal funding, but that doesn't bind the states in the allocation of their own state funds. Under the law, the individual states need not follow the federal lead. And in New York -- I will speak only for New York, not for Indiana or any other state -- in New York I believe we cannot follow the federal lead. The equal protection clause in New York’s constitution has been interpreted by courts as a standard of fairness that would preclude us from denying only the poor -- indirectly, by a cutoff of funds -- of the practical use of the constitutional right that's given to all women in Roe against Wade.
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