Who Pays for Abortions in the USA?
Randy O’Bannon of National Right to Life completed an exhaustive search of how much an abortion costs and how abortions are funded in the USA. Here is what he found, primarily from Guttmacher Institute reports:
- The average cost of a first trimester surgical abortion at 10 weeks is $451. An RU 486 chemical abortion is about $483. Surgical abortions at 20 weeks are $1,500 or more.
- For 2008, about 20% of abortions were paid for by Medicaid. That would represent about 242,480 of the 1,212,400 abortions performed that year.
- Private insurers paid for about 12% of abortions which would be 145,488 abortions.
- An additional 13% were paid for by “financial assistance programs such as private abortion funds and reduced fees to cover some or all of the cost of the service,” according to Guttmacher. That would be 157,612 abortions. There are private abortion funds in 40 states including the Wisconsin Women’s Medical Fund, Inc. which claims to have helped fund 15,000 abortions. Read about this fund here.
In summary, it appears that over 40% of abortions are paid for by state programs, private insurance or special abortion funds. As Randy O’Bannon states, “In one sense, it doesn’t matter whether the clinic gets its money from the woman or from state health programs, insurance or special funds, since it gets paid either way. However the more that people can count on others to pick up the tab, the more they are likely to access the service.
“….whenever a child is aborted, we all pay for that loss in multiple ways….a woman still bears the cost in her empty arms and broken heart. And the child pays the ultimate price of all, giving up his or her life.”
Barbara Lyons