AUGUSTA (AP) – Activists on both sides gathered at the Maine State House on Thursday as a legislative committee took up a bill to provide public financing for some abortions.

Sponsored by Senate President Beth Edmonds, the bill would require the state to pay for abortions for women covered by Medicaid, known in Maine as MaineCare.

Edmonds, D-Freeport, said she had long favored expanding eligibility and that now, in her final Senate term, the time had come to try.

“This is my last shot,” she said. “It’s an important issue to me personally.”

Opponents held a rally on the front steps of the State House in advance of a public hearing before the Legislature Health and Human Services Committee.

“Don’t use my tax dollars to kill pre-born children,” read one sign. Among the speakers was Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Malone of the Diocese of Portland.

MaineCare currently covers abortion only in cases of rape, incest or when a woman’s life is at risk.

Testimony prepared for the Health and Human Services panel by Planned Parenthood of Northern New England cast the issue as one of “fairness and equity.”

Evelyn Kieltyka of the Family Planning Association of Maine said she was struck by “the implicit prejudice and moral judgment poor women feel when faced with the consequences of an unintended pregnancy.”

But speaking at the opponents’ rally, Sen. Jonathan Courtney, R-Sanford, urged public financing critics not to be distracted by talk of rich and poor.

Courtney maintained that the decision before lawmakers had a simple focus – “using your tax dollars to fund abortions.”

To provide financial assistance to eligible women for abortion services, the bill seeks $283,272 in both of the upcoming two fiscal years.

Edmonds, whose proposal has the support of Gov. John Baldacci, acknowledged it was not included in budget legislation pending before the Appropriations Committee.

“Not yet,” she said.

Conceding that she had viewed prospects for passage as something of a longshot, Edmonds said most recently she saw its fate as more promising.

But she declined to go beyond “who knows?”

Presentations prepared for the committee were impassioned.

“Please do not require us to pay for abortions that are medically unnecessary,” wrote Brenda Hopkins of Plymouth. “To use our tax dollars to pay for more abortions is a violation of the deepest conviction of those of us who believe in the sanctity of life.”

Sarah Standiford of the Maine Women’s Lobby, speaking just days after a narrowly divided Supreme Court said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, alluded to national developments in making her case.

“As the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision seeks to turn the tide on the right to choose, it is up to Maine lawmakers – supported by the majority of Maine voters – to continue to state authoritatively that women’s health matters,” she said.

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