[PJ] Abortion-rights activists wearing red-and-white "handmaiden" robes weren’t enough to dissuade the West Virginia Senate from approving a measure that would make it clear no woman in the state has a constitutional right to receive an abortion.Pro-life state Sen. Robert Karnes (R) said it’s hoped the proposed constitutional amendment would help reverse a 1993 Supreme Court decision that mandated West Virginia taxpayers pay for Medicaid-funded abortions.
West Virginia, according to the Guttmacher Institute, is one of 17 states that provide Medicaid-funded abortions, a policy that Karnes argues forces taxpayers to foot the bill for the procedures.
Karnes also told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that should the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturn Roe v. Wade the constitutional amendment would clear the way for West Virginia to ban all abortions, whether they are paid with taxpayer money or not.
"Today’s been quite a rollercoaster for women’s health advocates," said Margaret Chapman Pomponio, executive director of the abortion-rights group West Virginia Free.
"We were lambasted by this constitutional amendment, which is incredibly severe," Chapman Pomponio also said.
West Virginia Free isn’t giving up. The group used its Facebook page to rally the troops who support abortion rights to lobby their senators to defeat SJR 12.