Israel Plans to Pay for All of Its Young Ladies' Abortions in 2014
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American
conservatives love, love, love Israel. They also hate, hate, hate
abortion and socialized medicine. American conservatives face one hell
of a moral conundrum in the new year.
Via Ha'aretz:
Israel will pay for abortions for women aged 20 to 33 regardless of circumstance starting next year, health officials said Monday, adding that they hope to make eligibility for state funding universal in the future....
The new rule opens it up for 6,300 more women to have a state-funded abortion next year, at a cost of about 16 million shekels ($4.6 million). The cost of all state-subsidized abortions is estimated at 24 million shekels a year.
Officials
ultimately aim to fund all abortions as part of the Jewish state's
publicly subsidized "health basket" for citizens, as well as offering
full contraceptive coverage—but for now, they'll stand pat on this plan
to bankroll abortions for young women, Ha'aretz reports.
"It was brought to our attention that there is a large group of women
between 20 and 40 who for various reasons – financial or reasons of
secrecy – do not terminate pregnancies," a state health official
explained in a press conference. "In the current basket we've approved
funding for pregnancy termination for women in the 20-to-33 age group,
with the intention of completing the process ... and raising the age to
40."
This
will be a tough cookie for the mostly evangelical philo-Semites of the
American Right. Consider Sarah Palin—who, admittedly, is an idiot, but
still gets straight-faced praise in some conservative circles. She's a
Pentecostal who's sworn to combat "the atrocity of abortion" and decried Obamacare as "the biggest advance of the abortion industry in America." She's also visited the Holy Land, made a cottage industry of "defending our friends in Israel," and told Israelis to stop "apologizing all the time" for doing their thang.
There's
no been no comment yet from Palin and her fellow antichoice Zionists on
Eretz Yisrael's abortions for its chosen people. Of course, it's
possible the conservatives' brains just exploded.
Free abortion for all women 20-33, panel recommends
Health Ministry committee submits findings for expanded coverage at a cost of NIS 300 millon
December 30, 2013, 6:24 pm
Israeli women aged 20-33 will be able to
receive state-funded abortions for non-medical reasons if the
recommendations of a Health Ministry commission, published Monday, are
passed into law.
The
committee, chaired by Prof. Yonatan Halevi, examined 650 medicines and
technologies worth more than NIS 2 billion over 3 months, in order to
determine what would be added to the expanded list of state-subsidized
treatments. The body was bound by a NIS 300 million ($86 million) limit
on the health care expansion.
In the end, 83 new medicines and treatments were added to the list, which were estimated to cover cover 115,000 patients.
According to the recommendations, women
seeking an abortion will still need to receive the approval of a
government panel. The committee wanted to fund the procedure for all
women, according to Ynet, but budgetary constraints forced them to limit
it by age.
The estimated cost per patient was estimated
at NIS 2,484 ($714), which covers not only the process, but also the
cost of appearing before the government panel. Without government
approval, abortion is illegal, but the panel approves 98% of the cases
brought before it.
The panel is made up of two physicians and one licensed social worker, and at least one of the three must be a woman.
With 6,300 women in the covered age range
expected to terminate their pregnancies in 2014, the cost to the state
is anticipated at NIS 15.6 million ($4.5 million).
Currently, only abortions for medical reasons and for girls under the age of 18 are paid for by the state.
Halevy said that one of his considerations was
that women were avoiding abortions in hospitals because of financial
difficulty, or because of a desire to hide the pregnancy.
Private abortions cost NIS 5,000-6,000 ($1,500 to $1,750.)
Other committee members voiced concern that the expanded coverage would lead to more abortions.
Unlike in the United States, abortion has
never figured in the country’s political campaigns. In fact, Israel does
not even have an active anti-abortion movement.
The Israeli penal code states that termination
of pregnancy is a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to five
years. But the code also broadly addresses numerous circumstances in
which an abortion may be legally performed, including benefit to
emotional and financial well-being.
Approval is practically automatic if the
pregnant woman is younger than 17 or older than 40; if the conception
was a result of rape, incest or extramarital relations; if the pregnancy
is likely to endanger the mother’s physical or mental well-being; or if
the fetus has been diagnosed with a possible birth defect.
Women also do not need the consent of any
male, including the father of the child, nor do minors need the consent
of parents or guardians. Israeli medical coverage offers an array of
free testing for genetic and congenital birth defects.
Less than 10 percent of abortions in Israel
are carried out after the 22nd week and some 20,000 legal abortions are
performed in public hospitals every year in Israel, according to the
Knesset research department.
This does not include abortions performed out
of concern for the mother’s physical health, which are often not even
brought before the committee.
It is unknown how many women avoid the
committee — whether because they are between 17 and 40, or because of
personal preference — and turn to a private doctor.
Further, the army provides at least one free abortion to every female soldier who requests one.
The expanded formulary, or basket of medical
services, covered a variety of treatments beyond abortion that were not
previously covered.
“This expansion is an expansion of the
formulary in which we heard the voices of sectors that until now have
not been heard,” said Halevi.
The panel called for the coverage of benign enlargement of the prostate and cancer to be expanded as well.
“Nearly every medical field is represented in
this expansion,” Halevi emphasized. “When we have to prioritize NIS 300
million for NIS 2 billion, we are forced to forgo certain medicines, but
there is no life-saving medicine that is not covered.”
“The meetings of the formulary committee were
carried out with full transparency,” said Health Minister Yael German
(Yesh Atid). “A comprehensive and professional preparation was
performed. I know that the committee struggled hard over a number of
medicines and technologies that we could not cover this year, and maybe
not next year either.”
The committee’s recommendations will be
presented on Wednesday to the Health Council, the government body that
advises the Health Minister.
