Instead, even as state legislators are finding new ways to interfere with a woman’s or couple’s decisions about baby-making, they are reducing the services upon which families depend. Arizona legislators have been particularly harsh. In 2009, Governor Brewer closed her state’s $1.6 billion budget gap partly by eliminating $155 million from the state’s Department of Economic Security—money that had gone toward early-education and therapy programs for the developmentally disabled. The following year, the legislature tried to ax the state’s $9 million Children’s Health Insurance Program for low-income families, KidsCare. In 2011, state Senator Andy Biggs, who in campaign literature advertises himself as a pro-life Republican, proposed eliminating Arizona’s Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, altogether. That would have saved the state $2 billion but cost it $7.5 billion in federal matching funds.

“There have been a lot of impassioned speeches from my Republican colleagues about the significance of a child’s life regardless of their disability, and about the value of human life,” says Arizona House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, a Phoenix Democrat. “But when they do a budget, it doesn’t include the concern for human life they talk about all the time.” The Children’s Health Insurance Program remains but with enrollment frozen as of January 2010. In 2008, KidsCare covered close to 65,000 children; now it serves 14,000. The waiting list for the program has grown to more than 100,000.

11 months ago  /  208 notes  /