This weekend, as the 2022 session is wrapping up, the Mississippi Senate Rules committee made the unusual move of passing a suspension resolution (SCR 588) to bring a failed bill back to life. The bill is SB 2033, sponsored by three Republicans and eleven Democrats. The bill seeks to expand Medicaid to able-bodied women for up to a year after either an abortion or the birth of a child.
While some have framed the proposal as a way to help pregnant women, there is little evidence such a proposal would actually help women. Under SB 2033, Medicaid coverage for women would be covered for 12 months instead of the current 2 months required by federal law. This proposal has been sold as a “pro-life” bill because it expands taxpayer-subsidized insurance to women. This logic is deeply flawed, and, frankly, insulting to the pro-life movement. In addition, there is little evidence that this bill will reduce either maternal mortality or infant mortality in Mississippi.
Expanding Postpartum Medicaid Coverage is Not Pro-life
Expanding Medicaid to able-bodied adults is not pro-life. There are several reasons for this.
In the first place, it is important to note that Mississippi Medicaid actually covers abortion in limited, but morally questionable, cases. Federal law requires Mississippi Medicaid to pay for abortions in cases of rape and incest. In addition, Mississippi has opted to allow for Medicaid coverage of abortions in cases of "fetal impairment," which could include chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome. This policy potentially conflicts with the state's Life Equality Act passed in 2020, which explicitly prohibits abortions on the basis of a genetic abnormality.
Therefore, any expansion of Medicaid in the state to women of child-bearing age must be understood as an expansion of state-funded abortion within these parameters. This is especially true for the current proposal to expand postpartum Medicaid, which of course exclusively applies to women of child-bearing age.
Furthermore, postpartum Medicaid expansion creates the potential for a perverse incentive that could ultimately lead to women having more frequent abortions.
Under federal law (42 C.F.R. § 440.210(a)(2)(i)-(ii)), postpartum Medicaid coverage applies as follows:
"For women who, while pregnant, applied for, were eligible for, and received Medicaid services under the plan, all services under the plan that are pregnancy-related for an extended postpartum period. The postpartum period begins on the last day of pregnancy and extends through the end of the month in which the 60-day period following termination of pregnancy ends."
On the surface, it might seem that postpartum coverage applies to women who carry their baby to birth, but federal law defines the period as beginning “following termination.” That seems to include abortion and involuntary miscarriage.
If a woman ends a pregnancy through abortion, she would theoretically be eligible for postpartum Medicaid for 12 months after she ended the pregnancy, just in the same way as a woman who had naturally miscarried or carried her baby to full term.
Theoretically, this means that a woman could have an abortion every 12 months and stay on Medicaid indefinitely. This is all the more possible insofar as SB 2033 does not require any ongoing eligibility checks.
More problematic is that Medicaid is a major source of funding for Planned Parenthood. According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, government funding for Planned Parenthood, including Medicaid, is almost $1.7 million per day.
The Hattiesburg Planned Parenthood accepts Medicaid. Included among the services they offer are “abortion referrals,” “the morning-after pill” and “LGBTQ services.”
Mississippi also covers “family planning” for one year after a pregnant woman enrolls in Medicaid. This family planning waiver is incredibly generous in terms of the categories covered: women and men earning up to 194 percent of the federal poverty level ($55,236 for a family of four) and including individuals aged 13 to 44. It is presumed that Planned Parenthood is a major provider of services under this waiver in Mississippi.
Expanding Medicaid postpartum from 2 months to 12 months, however, will benefit Planned Parenthood even more, as women who have just had a baby are more likely to use contraception to space out childbirth. Indeed, the average time between births in the United States is about 26 months. Expanding postpartum coverage to 12 months, at a minimum, allows women who are not eligible for family planning services to access these services – again, to the benefit of providers like Planned Parenthood.
Medicaid Already Covers Parents and Caretakers of Children
The most misleading aspect of this attempt to expand Medicaid to able-bodied adults is the failure to disclose that Medicaid already covers the parents of children on Medicaid!
According to the Mississippi Division of Medicaid:
"Parents or caretakers must have children under age 18 living in the home, who are deprived of the support of one or both parents due to the disability of a parent, the death or continued absence of a parent or have parent(s) who are unemployed or have very low income."
This means that parents who are unemployed, single or who have very low income are already eligible for Medicaid. Who, then, does this Medicaid expansion cover?
- Women who are NOT single parents.
- Women who are NOT unemployed.
- Women who are older than age 18.
- Women who earn less than $55,236 for a family of four.
This hardly sounds like the vulnerable population Mississippi taxpayers are being led to think will benefit from this Medicaid expansion.
In addition, it’s worth pointing out that while the federal government covers about 85 percent of the costs of Medicaid coverage, women that enroll on the Obamacare exchange are covered at 100 percent. And, under the Biden administration, eligibility categories for Obamacare have increased expansively.
An additional concern is that every expansion of Medicaid actually increases costs for those on private insurance. Thus, while expanding Medicaid to 12 months for postpartum women might seem like an idea that would lower healthcare costs, it actually has the potential to increase costs for everyone else.
Maternal and Infant Mortality Claims Need Further Study
Many of the arguments for postpartum Medicaid expansion are based upon claims that Mississippi has among the highest rates of postpartum mortality. Some have claimed that the reason for these statistics simply must be a lack of government health care.
Many of the advocates for postpartum Medicaid expansion have referenced a report produced by the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, claiming that the report demonstrates the need for postpartum Medicaid expansion. These committees are funded by grants from the Centers for Disease Control and, predictably, always arrive at the same conclusion: expand Medicaid.
The claims that are being drawn from the Mississippi report require additional study, to say the least.
A careful reading of the data in the report reveals that many of the deaths listed in the report have little or nothing to do with pregnancy. For example, there are a total of 136 deaths listed in the report from 2013 to 2016. Many of these deaths were unrelated to pregnancy and largely unpreventable from a health insurance perspective. This includes motor vehicle accidents (24 percent), homicide (7 percent), fire (3 percent), and other causes that had little to do with pregnancy.
Even more to the point, Mississippi’s report acknowledges the following:
"The majority of maternal deaths occurred in the postpartum period including 37% occurring after 6 weeks and involve women insured by state Medicaid (p. 23)."
In other words, the majority of maternal deaths involved women ALREADY on Medicaid. It is beyond dispute that Medicaid health outcomes are not very good – in fact, worse than the uninsured, who tend to pay cash for healthcare (see, for instance, J. Taylor: “Medicaid: A Government Monopoly that Hurts the Poor” (2018)). But if even the Maternal Mortality Review Committee is acknowledging that the majority of maternal deaths involve women on Medicaid, it seems obvious that expanding Medicaid to postpartum women is a bad idea. Indeed, it may be Medicaid that is the problem.
The primary purpose of a business is to generate capital through the production of goods and/or services. But big businesses have also become increasingly involved in the political and ideological battles of the day. Some have supported the foundational principles the nation was founded on, while others have chosen the path of "political correctness."
In recent years, there has been a reaction among some that big business itself poses a threat to the values and priorities of the common man. While some big businesses have caused a great deal of harm, big business itself is not the real problem. In fact, a large portion of Americans provide for themselves through employment at these large companies. The problem is when big businesses embrace bad ideologies.
On the fundamental level, the larger a business is, the greater its capacity is for good or for evil. This goes both ways. For instance, American industrial companies were so successful in their production for the World War II war effort that they became known as "the arsenal of democracy.” On the other hand, several big businesses in Germany used government-sanctioned forced labor. They justified it with the Nazi logic of "German superiority.”
While many may gasp at such complicity with evil, these German companies simply did the same thing that many companies do today. They bought into the “politically correct” ideology of their time and context. In the Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, this was the Nazi ideology of racism and world conquest. These companies then used their strength to generate profits in bad faith through forced labor. On the other hand, the American companies used their economic position in the market to rally behind the American ideals of liberty and patriotism while producing honest profits for their companies. The contrast is striking.
America is no longer at war with an evil foreign power set on taking over the world. Yet, the threat of certain ideologies in corporate America is more real than ever. History teaches us the immense danger of large corporations simply going along with whatever ideology of the day happens to be in fashion. But these lessons have not been learned by all.
While the politically correct corporations of today are not embracing the ideology of Nazism, many of them have embraced other evils that are popular in our day. Companies have supported the breakdown of society through critical race theory. Some have used their dominant market share to censor certain views that go against the orthodoxy of the Left. While others have leveraged their political and cultural clout to campaign against the rights of unborn children, contribute to the breakdown of the family, and support the election of political leaders that will expand government and oppose freedom.
Many of tomorrow's business executives are indoctrinated in schools and colleges with the tenants of the Left’s orthodoxy. So we should not be surprised when the companies they lead become more concerned about being “woke” than producing quality products. When a large company contributes to the breakdown of the nation, the fault does not lie in the size of the business. The fault lies with the decision of the company to mix “political correctness” with its profits.
Bad ideologies are damaging no matter where they are found, not just in big business. These ideologies have infiltrated into America’s government, media, corporate world, public opinion, and universities. To protect the nation from the dangerous consequences of such ideologies, America needs hearts and minds that are grounded in the principles it was founded on. This is the true key to victory against the assault on the nation’s founding ideals.
(JACKSON, MS) – The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will hear arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. The case considers whether Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban is constitutional.
In 2018, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) played a key role in drafting the law and educating lawmakers about the important role the legislation would play in both protecting women’s health and protecting the lives of unborn children.
This commonsense law strikes the right balance for Mississippi by protecting the health of women considering abortion and in protecting the lives of the unborn. It protects women from serious and significant risks and protects the life of the unborn child with a beating heart who can move, hear, taste, see, and feel pain.
Dr. Jameson Taylor, Senior Vice President for Policy, comments: “Roe v. Wade is old case law based on old science. Here in Mississippi, we have sought to update our abortion laws so that they meet the commonsense standard that limits abortion after the first trimester. We are thankful the Supreme Court is listening to states who believe it’s time to take a second look at what the science is saying.”
Continues Dr. Taylor: “The scientific evidence confirms that the risk of a mother dying from an abortion skyrockets after the first trimester. That’s why a majority of Mississippi voters and lawmakers strongly agree our state laws should protect women and not put them at greater risk of death or injury from later-term abortions. Nearly every other country in the world follows the same standard and does not permit abortion after the first trimester because it is much more dangerous for women and an obvious violation of human rights.”
The risk of a mother dying from an abortion increases more than 2,100 percent between 8-weeks and 18-weeks of pregnancy, according to the scientific literature. Maternal mortality increases by 38 percent with every week after 8-weeks gestation.
“The whole point of state regulation of abortion is to protect maternal health and to uphold the state’s general interest in protecting life,” concludes Dr. Taylor. “Instead of basing abortion law on a so-called viability standard, it’s time for the court to put women’s health and safety front and center. Late-term second and third trimester abortions are dangerous for women. That’s why the viability standard completely misses the mark in terms of protecting women.”
This legislation brings Mississippi into standing with most of the rest of the world. 92 percent of other nations limit abortion after the first trimester. The U.S. is one of only four countries that permit abortion-on-demand throughout all 9 months of pregnancy. We find company on this issue with North Korea and China.
For more information or to request an interview with Dr. Taylor, please contact Communications Director, Hunter Estes, at [email protected].
“People overestimate what they can accomplish in one legislative session and underestimate what they can accomplish in ten.”
In this series, we are conducting a review of what Mississippi lawmakers have accomplished over the last 10 years. Again, the list provided here is not comprehensive, and we feature only the policies we like, some of which were initiated by MCPP (marked by an *asterisk* below).
Mississippi is one of the most pro-life states in America; although, it is not THE most pro-life state. Louisiana held that distinction until Arkansas recently passed a flurry of pro-life laws in 2020. Still, policymakers in Mississippi have steadily advanced the right to life, enacting balanced measures aimed at protecting the right to life and protecting maternal health.
Here are some of the highlights:
Twenty-week abortion ban: This law (HB 1400), sponsored by Rep. Andy Gipson in 2014, prohibits abortions performed after the baby is 20-weeks old. The law has not been challenged in court.
Dismemberment ban: This law (HB 519) bans second trimester abortions that entail the dismemberment and removal of the dead baby (also known as a D&E abortion). Mississippi was the fourth state in the country to pass this law. It was sponsored by Rep. Sam Mims in 2016. The law has not been challenged in court.
15-week abortion ban: This law (HB 1510), sponsored by Rep. Becky Currie and championed by Senator Joey Fillingane in 2018, prohibits abortions performed after the baby is 15-weeks old. The law has been blocked by a federal court and is under review at the U.S. Supreme Court.*
Heartbeat ban: This law (SB 2116), sponsored by Sen. Angela Hill in 2019, prohibits abortion after the baby’s heartbeat is detected: generally, at about 6 weeks. The law has been blocked by a federal court.
Life Equality Act: This law (HB 1295) prohibits abortions performed with discriminatory intent against a mother and unborn child because of the child’s sex, race or disability. The law was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Crawford in 2020. The law has not been challenged in court.*
Over the past year, everything shut down—almost everything. Abortion was deemed essential, and Mississippi’s sole abortion facility remained open. Any time abortion is available in Mississippi, the Center for Pregnancy Choices Metro Area remains even more available with free resources.
With abortions averaging sixty per week in our Fondren community, we know there is an urgent demand for the needs that come from unexpected pregnancies. For every woman who has searched for abortion out of fear and uncertainty and instead found hope and life-changing support from a community that cares, CPC Metro Area is essential.
We have the freedom to do so in Mississippi. Yet, these free and confidential services, unfortunately, are being threatened.
For over 32 years, CPC Metro Area has offered free material, emotional, and spiritual support to women facing pregnancy decisions. Their staff walks women through pregnancy tests, offers options counseling for parenting, adoption, and abortion, and gives women the opportunity to have free sonograms. Materially, they offer free diapers, clothes, prenatal vitamins, and other parenting supplies at our clinics.
Their local partner churches host single mothers’ support groups, throw baby showers and establish long-term communities for young families. They are committed to facing unplanned pregnancies alongside women. They maintain relationships with them from their first call to long after a child is born.
For women who do choose abortion, they offer confidential abortion recovery groups. While they are a life-affirming ministry, they offer hope to women wherever they are without judgment or condemnation. Jackson’s CPC locations are the largest pregnancy medical clinics in the state, with one of their two clinic locations 100 yards from Jackson’s abortion facility. They represent a variety of resources offered by nearly 40 pregnancy centers spread across the state.
So why would anyone want to threaten its existence in our community?
The newly established Biden administration has nominated California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as head of the U.S Health and Human Services. In 2018, the same Becerra challenged pregnancy centers in a landmark Supreme Court case, NIFLA v Becerra. Thankfully, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, representing pregnancy centers, won at the Supreme Court. The potential HHS leader has already established a strong desire to stifle the speech and existence of pregnancy centers and their free services.
In the name of “choice,” Becerra appears dead-set on removing the choices of parenting or adoption support from our local communities.
Women continue to face unexpected pregnancies but with the added financial, emotional, and medical hardships we all have faced in the last year. They continue to find pregnancy centers online for help. CPC Metro Area is funded by local churches and individuals, divorced from any government agency backing, yet this administration seems adamant about limiting their services.
Service-oriented nonprofit costs have increased and many anticipate increasing needs in 2021. This free-market approach exceeds the normal state agency rates of success at a much lower cost. We need them to remain in our city and throughout our state.
This is the practical response to the demand for abortion in Mississppi.
Whether seasons of elections, policy changes, social movements, or pandemics hit the borders of Mississippi, CPC Metro Area will fight to be here. If you would like to join hundreds of Mississippians interested in saving lives today, learn more about their upcoming LifeWalk here.
Our response as Mississippians is clear—we must focus on practical solutions today rather than place our hope in politicians’ plans for tomorrow. Make your voice heard to keep free speech and freedom of association for abortion alternatives in our community.
In November, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Tennesee may prohibit eugenic abortions of preborn children based on race, sex, or genetic abnormality. This summer, Governor Bill Lee signed an omnibus pro-life bill with a variety of additions to abortion law. Several abortion advocacy groups immediately filed emergency lawsuits, and District Judge William Campbell temporarily blocked the restrictions from taking effect.
Among the several conditions Governor Lee signed into law, not every limitation is active. Some restrictions will still be challenged in court. However, a ban on discriminatory abortions on the basis of race, sex, and genetic abnormality is now active law. Mississippi celebrates our neighbors to the North joining us in correcting this discriminatory practice.
Mississippi passed The Life Equality Act (HB 1295) this summer, making Mississippi one of the nation’s leaders in the protection of life. This bill was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Crawford (R- Pass Christian), and the Senate version of the bill was introduced by Sen. Jenifer Branning (R- Philadelphia) — two powerful female voices for the most vulnerable in our state.
The bill's first step was made possible by Rep. Nick Bain's ( R-Corinth) leadership during the House committee vote. Sen. Brice Wiggins (R- Pascagoula) led the Senate committee vote, advocated for boldly by Sen. Joey Filingane (R-Sumrall) before the Judiciary B committee. Sen. Jeremey England (R- Ocean Springs) took to social media for this critical piece of legislation, “I believe it is of the utmost importance that our laws are applied equally and that they provide equal protection of our God-given rights.”
The Mississippi House Members who co-sponsored the bill alongside Rep. Crawford were Rep. Brady Williamson, Rep. Steve Hopkins, Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, Rep. Lester Carpenter, Rep. William Tracy Arnold, Rep. Dana Criswell, Rep. Donnie Scoggin, Rep. Dana McLean, Rep. Chris Brown (20th), Rep. Dan Eubanks, Rep. Shane Barnett, Rep. Jansen Owen, Rep. Gene Newman, and Rep. Randy Boyd.
The law signed into effect by Governor Tate Reeves prevents abortions from taking place because of diagnoses like Down Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis. Even in non-fatal cases, as many as 67 percent of babies with Down syndrome are aborted in the United States. Respectively, an estimated 95 percent of babies given a prenatal diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis are aborted. Increasingly, evidence displays the presence of abortions taking place when families prefer male babies to female. Just as devastating, pregnancy decisions are sometimes made on the basis of the race of the child. This bill makes a strong stand against the taking of a preborn life due to prejudice. Mississippi has made it illegal for abortionists to knowingly carry out discriminatory abortion, with criminal penalties.
What does this mean for Mississippi?
With more states joining the movement to end discriminatory abortions each year, many legal experts anticipate these limitations soon moving to the US Supreme Court. This will be a groundbreaking case to follow because it may set the precedent on states’ abilities to restrict abortion before the age of viability when there is a proven state interest in providing protection to minority groups. This case, in turn, could call into question previous rulings across the courts of America. Tennessee and Mississippi will be strong allies calling to question—do states have the right to protect those being discriminated against, whether in the womb or outside of it?