The shutdown-averting $38.5 billion budget agreement reached on Friday does not include the GOP’s demand to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but it would prohibit the District of Columbia from using local funds to pay for abortions. As a result, DC Medicaid ended its coverage of abortions last night, leaving 28 women who were scheduled to have the procedure without a means to pay for it. DC Abortion Fund sent out this alert:
Tonight we received an urgent call from a partner clinic to notify us that DC Medicaid is ending it’s coverage of abortions at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.
The clinic had to call 28 women who are scheduled tomorrow and bringing their DC Medicaid as payment that they need to fundraise for the total cost of their procedure by their appointment tomorrow because Medicaid will no longer cover the cost of their abortion.
These women are devastated. We need your support NOW.
The clinic has asked if the DC Abortion Fund could pay for a percentage of the cost of all 28 abortions scheduled tomorrow slated to be covered by DC Medicaid, all of which cost several hundreds of dollars.
“We’ve raised over $3,965 so far in the last 12 hours,” DC Abortion Fund’s Tiffany Reed told DCist. “We’re still working to fundraise for the women who are scheduled today and then we have women scheduled Friday and Saturday who are just now being notified they can’t use their Medicaid.”
Abortions cost approximately $400 if performed during the first trimester and the price increases greatly later in the gestation period.
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