Gloucester Daily Times Debate on Abortion (66), October 31, 1986

Taxes Shouldn’t Buy Abortions

Question No. 1 on the Nov. 4 ballot is a question of how you want your tax dollars spent.

It is not a question of whether or not a woman can have an abortion. The Supreme Court decided in favor of abortion and that is now the law of the land.

Question No. 1 asks whether we citizens of Massachusetts want our tax dollars to pay for elective abortions, either within the state or outside the state.

Do you know that girl under 18 years of age can’t stitches in a hospital emergency room to have a tetanus shot, or have her ears pierced without her mother’s consent?

Yet under state law she can get an abortion, even have an out-of-state abortion without parental consent, and we taxpayers pay for it.

Taxpayers in only five states out of 50 pay for elective abortions. Massachusetts is one of the five.

You and I in this state paid for $1,407,000 for elective abortions last year. The U.S. government paid $367,466 for all the states. We paid three times more than the federal government. And more than 1/3 of our tax dollars paid for second and third trimester abortions.

I shall vote “YES” on question No. 1 to stop my tax dollars from paying for elective abortions. That money can be better spent on the hungry, the sick and the elderly. I hope you too will vote “yes” on Question No. 1.

Madeline O’Donnell, Edgemoor Road