What do you do when two or more of your beliefs come into conflict with each other? On the one hand, you are anti-choice and want to promote healthy pregnancies and adoption rather than policies that can lead to abortions. On the other hand, you hate brown people and detest the idea that undocumented women’s babies are automatically U.S. citizens if they are born on U.S. soil. Nothing aggravates you more than the idea of having your tax dollars go to people who are in the country illegally. Given these beliefs, do you support giving Medicaid benefits for prenatal care to a pregnant woman who is not a U.S. citizen and not legally residing in this country? You don’t have to be a Republican to find yourself in this quandary. And, at least some Republicans are able to resolve this conflict correctly.
“We don’t accept that borders should be put ahead of babies,” said Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life. Nebraska Right to Life believes that providing prenatal care “improves the chances that a woman will choose to give birth rather than seek an abortion.”
Yet, Nebraska has determined that they are legally blocked from offering Medicaid benefits to unborn babies if the mother is not otherwise qualified to receive those benefits.
Eulalia Raymundo started her prenatal care with a smile and an ultrasound showing the first signs of a baby girl she would call Selina.
Her joy has turned to worry as she learned she is among more than 6,000 pregnant women in Nebraska who suddenly might be without prenatal medical coverage as a result of a change in the state’s Medicaid system.
Like Raymundo, a Guatemala native having her fifth child, about 1,000 are undocumented immigrants.
But an additional 5,000 poor, pregnant women who were born in this country or who are legal residents also are caught up in a revision of state policy that has many health care and immigrant advocates outraged.
Obviously the solution is to deport the 1,000 undocumented pregnant women and amend the 14th amendment so that any who are missed can’t gain access to Medicaid through their U.S. citizen children. The other 5,000 women can go pound sand, or just get a good paying job that will allow them to buy enough chickens to barter for their health care needs.
