Battle on Medicaid abortions resumes

TALLAHASSEE -- After bouncing from court to court for nearly a decade, a legal battle over Medicaid funding of abortions landed temporarily before an administrative judge Tuesday.

Administrative Judge Patricia Malono doesn't have the power to rule on the constitutionality of state regulations, the issue before her. After she listens to four days of arguments and testimony, the case will go to an appeals court.

The plaintiffs include a Miami abortion clinic, a doctor and a woman with epilepsy who could not get Medicaid funding for her abortion. They are represented by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in New York and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

They argue that state regulations banning Medicaid funding of medically necessary abortions discriminate against women, since Medicaid does pay for all reproductive health care for men, including Viagra for impotence.

"This is not about the right to legal abortions or any right to medical care," plaintiff's attorney Bonnie Scott Jones said in opening arguments. "It's about the right of women to equal treatment."

Medicaid, a joint federal-state program, pays for the health care of welfare families and for much of the nursing home care in Florida.

In Florida, it will pay for abortions to save the life of the woman or in cases of rape or incest. But it will not pay for abortions that women with diabetes, cancer or epilepsy may need for health reasons, according to Jones.

Those women have to scramble to find the money and sometimes delay the surgery for financial reasons, she said.

"It's not just that women are getting a lesser financial benefit," Jones told Malono. "It's that they're also getting exposed to a greater health risk."

Jeffries Duvall, a lawyer for the state Agency for Health Care Administration, won't make his opening argument until Thursday. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a federal law limiting the use of tax dollars on abortions. But a state can provide greater constitutional protections than the federal government, and Florida's Constitution includes language promising privacy and barring discrimination based on gender.

Florida's legal fight began in 1993 with a lawsuit in West Palm Beach. The case was transferred to a Tallahassee trial court.

In 1998, abortion rights advocates lost at the trial level, and in 2000 they lost their appeal to the 1st District Court of Appeal.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld the appellate decision last summer. But the high court specifically said its ruling was limited to the question of privacy and did not extend to the allegations of discrimination.

A new lawsuit alleging discrimination was filed last October. In April, a Tallahassee judge dismissed it.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright