Charging that Florida’s ban on Medicaid funding for low-income women’s abortions is unconstitutional, the Center for Reproductive Rights presented testimony last week to Florida’s Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH). At the hearing, the Center for Reproductive Rights demonstrated how the funding ban violates Florida’s Constitution by discriminating on the basis of sex. The case now sits in the hands of Judge Patricia Malono, who will rule on the factual issues within the next thirty days, but who will have to deny the relief sought on the grounds that she has no authority to grant it.
Once Judge Malono rules on the factual issues, the Center for Reproductive Rights will appeal the case to the court of appeals in order to get a ruling on the constitutionality of the funding ban.
"The challenged rules discriminate against women by denying low-income women access to health care services on the same terms as low-income men," said Bonnie Scott Jones, sstaff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel in the case. "Florida Medicaid pays for all medically necessary services related to men’s reproductive health, including Viagra for impotency, but ignores pregnant women with such illness as diabetes, cancer, and epilepsy who may need to terminate a pregnancy to preserve their health," added Jones.
Plaintiffs in A Choice for Women, Inc. v. Florida Agency for Health Care Administration include a health clinic, a doctor, and a woman who was unable to receive Medicaid funding for a medically necessary abortion.
When low-income women are denied Medicaid coverage for medically necessary abortions, they are forced to carry complicated pregnancies to term or significantly delay obtaining the procedure while they seek alternate funds. Because the risks of abortion increase with gestational age, either delaying the procedure or not having it at all increases the health risks faced by pregnant women. This in turn reinforces stereotypes about women as wives and mothers who should be willing to sacrifice their own health in order to produce children.
In July 2001, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the ban in Renee B. v. Florida Agency for Health Care Administration on privacy grounds but declined to rule on the plaintiffs’ sex discrimination claim. In October 2001, petitioners filed a case against AHCA in the Second Judicial Circuit, claiming that the funding ban violated Florida’s Constitution by discriminating on the basis of sex. The Circuit Court dismissed the complaint stating that the petitioners had not pursued all administrative remedies. Tuesday’s hearing is in direct response to the Circuit Court’s ruling.
Currently sixteen states cover all medically necessary abortions in their Medicaid programs; New Mexico and Connecticut have specifically ruled that refusing Medicaid coverage for low-income women’s abortions is a form of sex discrimination.
Plaintiffs are represented by Bonnie Scott Jones and Adrienne Lockie of the Center for Reproductive Rights and Larry Spalding of the ACLU of Florida.
