WASHINGTON, DC – The governor of South Carolina today issued an executive order that blocks state agencies from using taxpayer dollars to fund the abortion industry. The order prevents the use of either state or local taxpayer funds to go to any doctor or Health Clinic that is an affiliate of an abortion business.
The executive order directs state agencies to cease providing state or local funds – through grants, contracts, state-administered federal funds or any other form – to any physician or medical practices affiliated with an abortion clinic that is operating with or in the same physical location as one, according to the release.
“There are a variety of agencies, clinics, and medical entities in South Carolina that receive taxpayer funding to offer important women’s health and family planning services without performing abortions,” said McMaster in the release. “Taxpayer dollars must not directly or indirectly subsidize abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.”
McMaster directed the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services to seek waivers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to allow the agency to exclude abortion clinics from the state’s Medicaid provider network, the release stated.
Through McMaster’s order, SCDHHS has been instructed to coordinate with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to make a public a listing of all qualified non-abortion women’s health and family planning providers operating within a 25-mile radius of any abortion clinic excluded from the state’s Medicaid provider network.
South Carolina has one abortion clinic in each of its biggest cities: Charleston, Columbia and Greenville.