LIFEWATCH

Constitutional rights

In a big win for unborn children, the North Carolina Supreme Court has said the state constitution does not obligate taxpayers to pay for poor women's abortions. The Oct. 3 ruling held that current eligibility restrictions on the State Abortion Fund are constitutional. The abortion fund uses taxpayer funds to pay for abortions for women who are below the federal poverty level and not eligible for Medicaid, but only in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother's life is endangered. The court said that "no person has the constitutional right to have the state pay for medical care." The court went even further in this case, holding that indigent women do not receive "extraordinary protection" as a class under the constitution. The restrictions, passed in 1995, have had a huge effect on the number of abortions paid for by the citizens of North Carolina. Up to 4,600 abortions per year were provided by taxpayers before the law; since then, only one abortion has been funded by the state.