Washington, DC — In a major victory for pro-life advocates, the Bush
administration said Friday it will consider unborn children as persons
eligible for health insurance coverage under the State Children's Health
Insurance Program.
The administration said it is making the change to enable more low-income
pregnant women to obtain prenatal care. Under the new rule, states could
extend health insurance to unborn children from the moment of conception by
enrolling them in the CHIP program.
The debate will now shift to states, which must decide whether to add
unborn children to their programs. Both sides of the debate predicted
battles ahead.
Because CHIP, as the program is known, is aimed at children, it does not
typically cover parents or pregnant women, although states can get
permission to include adults if they request it. Under these new rules, it
will be a routine matter for states to add unborn children to their CHIP
programs.
“It represents a speedy new option for states that want to do more to
ensure that women get critical prenatal care that will increase the chances
that their children are born healthy,” Health and Human Services Secretary
Tommy Thompson said in a statement Friday. He called the change a
“commonsense, compassionate measure.”
Pro-life groups applauded the Bush administration's move.
“[The rule] should be welcomed by all who care about the health of pregnant
women and their children,” explained Monsignor William Fay of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops. “The proposed rule serves an important
goal, that of expanding access to quality prenatal care for children at
their earliest and most vulnerable stages of development and to their
mothers. It serves this goal by acknowledging that the child's need for
good nutrition and health care begins when the child first comes into
existence, at conception.”
Other pro-life advocates said the ruling, if implemented in states
nationwide, would address some of the financial and medical concerns that
sometimes prompt young women to consider abortion and thereby reduce the
number of abortions.
The final regulation, first proposed in January, will be published next
Wednesday in the Federal Register. It will take effect 30 days later.
HHS received a whopping 7,783 comments on the proposal, including some from abortion advocates who argued the Bush administration was trying to lay
legal groundwork establishing independent rights of the unborn child as a
step toward abolishing abortion.
HHS argued, “prenatal care benefits both mother and child and therefore
does not create tension between them.”
“This rule, rather than limiting an uninsured woman's choices in fact
expands them by offering important health care that may not otherwise be
available to her,” said the 111-page regulation.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life
Committee, praised the Bush administration action but feared it will be
stymied at the state level.
“The next question is, will pro-abortion politicians in some states cave
in to pressure from pro-abortion groups who insist there is no such thing
as an unborn child, and so deny this aid to mothers and their babies?” he
asked.
In fact, pro-abortion groups said they will urge states to reject this
option. They prefer for states to include pregnant women in CHIP —
something two states, New Jersey and Rhode Island, have already done — and exclude any mention of children before birth.
Or, they said, if the administration really wants to get prenatal care to
more women, it could simply support legislation pending in the Senate to
add pregnant women to CHIP. Thompson has said he supports the Senate bill.
Clarifying one aspect of the policy, the regulation explained that all
unborn children are eligible for coverage even if their mothers are
immigrants who are not. CHIP bars all illegal immigrants and only covers
legal immigrants who have been in the country for five years. But babies
born in the United States are citizens and therefore eligible for
assistance. In other words, unborn children are considered citizens of the
United States under the policy.
HHS said this was not the first time a baby before birth has been eligible
for government benefits. In the past, unborn children were eligible for
both welfare benefits and for Medicaid, which allowed for prenatal care.
HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said HHS would count unborn children in its
statistics about number of children covered by CHIP. He said it wasn't
clear if the department would break out the number of born vs. unborn
children.
The plan does not include any new money for the coverage. Rather, states
that want to participate would simply add participants to their existing
programs, which are funded with a combination of state and federal dollars.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
