Israel Picking Up Tab for Abortions

Photo Credit: WND

Israel’s newly-passed health budget for 2014 includes a significant increase in government funding for legal abortions, a move that Sandy Shoshani, national director of the pro-life organization Be’ad Chaim, says is a serious indictment of the nation’s spiritual condition.

Last month, the Health Basket Committee – which annually decides which medications, treatments and procedures will be covered or subsidized by the government – determined that the previous practice of paying for abortions for women under the age of 19 and over the age of 40 wasn’t enough.

Included in the new budget is 16 million shekels (USD $4.5 million) to also cover abortions for women between the ages of 20-33.

While all women seeking a legal abortion must receive special approval, the committee in charge of making that decision rubber-stamps 97 percent of requests, or well over 20,000 abortions each year.

Reports in recent years were that abortion rates were falling in Israel, despite the Jewish state’s very liberal laws on the matter. Since the 1990s, there had been a 20 percent drop in the number of legal abortions requested and performed. But the new legislation and government funding are expected to result in an additional 6,300 abortions per year.