Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Aid to Fetuses with Dependent Mothers. (Capital Report)

2002; Wiley; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

1552-146X

Kathi E. Hanna,

Child and Adolescent Health

On 31 January, Department of Health and Human Services secretary Tommy Thompson announced to the 29th annual Conservative Political Action Conference his plan to issue a regulation allowing states to provide health care insurance coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to pregnant women their children who are not yet born. The proposed rule extends rights directly to the fetus from conception, rather than enlarging coverage to directly include women in need of prenatal care. The new rule would clarify the definition of child under the CHIP program. Currently, CHIP allows states to provide health care coverage to low-income children under age nineteen. The provision would enable states to make immediate use of the funding already available under CHIP to provide prenatal care for low-income pregnant women not eligible for Medicaid. Created in 1997, CHIP is the largest single expansion of health insurance coverage for children in more than thirty years. Until now, it has remained relatively free of political shackles. Cynical and disingenuous are words being used by some women's groups in reaction to the announcement. They claim that CHIP, intended primarily for children, already allows states to use funds to care for pregnant women. States previously have been able to extend coverage to pregnant women by obtaining a federal waiver, without addressing the issue of whether a fetus is legally a child. New Jersey and Rhode Island did so last year. Waivers are not the solution, says Thompson, because of the excessive paperwork involved. Congress has already moved to reduce the paperwork. Women's groups and abortion rights leaders, while supporting access to prenatal care, said the administration's proposed definition, by giving distinct legal rights to fetuses, could establish a precedent for challenging Roe v. Wade. These fears are not unfounded. In that decision the Supreme Court wrote: We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins ... the judiciary at point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. The Court also wrote, If suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed. Since Roe, abortion opponents have endeavored to have embryos and fetuses defined as persons under the law, believing that it would then be easier to criminalize all abortions. In an 8 February article in The Washington Post, Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, was quoted as portraying the announcement as a political rather than legal victory for his cause, but also acknowledging this can be cited as another reason why people should reassess the state of abortion law. …