RALEIGH
Wake County has stopped paying for elective abortions for employees after officials said that a 29-year-old ruling by the N.C. Supreme Court makes it illegal to use tax money to pay for the procedure.
Wake County Manager David Cooke changed the county's self-insurance plan this week. The plan will continue to pay for abortions in cases of incest, rape or danger to the mother's life. Coverage for elective abortions has existed since 1999 at least.
Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake, a laywer and the minority leader in the N.C. House, said he called fellow Republican Tony Gurley, the newly installed chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, to discuss the court ruling and to make sure that Gurley knew that the county's insurance covered elective abortions.
"I promised him that someone would bring legal action against counties that didn't stop it," said Stam, who was the plaintiff in the 1981 court ruling.
In Forsyth County, County Manager Dudley Watts said that elective abortion is also covered in the health plan that covers Forsyth employees. He said he plans to get legal advice on what the county should now do, and ask the board of commissioners' opinion as well.
Commissioner Gloria Whisenhunt said she was "a little shocked" to find that the county does cover elective abortion.
"It is an elective surgery, and I don't think we should pay for it," she said.
Commissioner Walter Marshall said he thinks that a woman should have the choice of having an abortion, but he added that the county has to follow the law.
Greg Turner, Winston-Salem's assistant city manager, said he believes that the city's policy covers abortion for medical necessity. Turner said that the city has not had any discussion about changing the plan.
Mark Browder, the Forsyth County's health-plan consultant, said he has been hearing from counties all over the state since the issue arose in Wake.
"It has become a hot and heavy subject," he said. "You are going to see all of the public-sector employers comply with the law and change their policies."
But David Thompson, the executive director of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, said he believes that counties have the legal right decide whether to offer abortion coverage.
"We believe that counties have the autonomy to decide which benefits to offer to their employees, and the association will always strongly support the local governing board's ability to make these decisions," Thompson said in an e-mail sent to county officials across the state.
Opponents of Wake County's decision say that the county's move goes beyond the Supreme Court's decision, which dealt with paying for abortions for indigent women that were not a medical necessity.
Planned Parenthood of North Carolina and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose ending abortion coverage. Melissa Reed, the vice president of Planned Parenthood, said that Stam is playing politics with employees' benefits.
"I think that our county employees deserve to have comprehensive health coverage," Reed said. "It shouldn't be taken away because of somebody's political agenda."
The language of the Supreme Court ruling was strong enough that county officials felt that they had no choice but to change a policy that was in place for at least a decade, said Scott Warren, the Wake County attorney. The change was not based on moral judgments, he said."The county is not saying you can't have an abortion, and the county is saying you can have medically necessary abortion."
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement