RALEIGH -- The Wake County Board of Commissioners today left in place a county ban on employees' health insurance coverage for elective abortions.
About a dozen people, about evenly divided on the issue, offered heated and emotional comments about whether the procedure should be covered. But that was after two procedural votes failed to budge the county's decision to remove the funding last week.
Democratic commissioners Lindy Brown and Stan Norwalk said they had each received more than 500 e-mails opposed to the move, and questioned whether county administrators could take away a benefit the board had previously approved.
"The (county) attorney has said it is not lawful to do it and it is currently not part of our plan," county manager David Cooke said.
Dorothy Yeuung, an official of North Carolina RIght to Life, spoke in favor of keeping the ban, while holding her infant child in her arms.
"Our position is firmly supported in law," Yeung said. "It is also the right thing to do."
Sandy Babb, a board member of NARAL, said that she was appalled by the county's action.
"I am appalled as a woman," Babb said. "This is a slap in the face of every female employee of Wake County."
Babb said she and others in the organization would confer over whether to take legel or other action in response to the ban.
Commissioner Lindy Brown first unsuccessfully moved that an agenda item on the change in coverage be removed from the board's consent agenda, a group of items that typically pass as a unit without discussion. But the consent agenda, still containing the abortion item, failed to get a passing vote.
County officials said last week that a board vote on the item wasn't needed because Cooke had the authority to make the change as an administrative matter.
Last week, county officials cut off reimbursement for "medically unnecessary" abortions, citing a 29-year-old state Supreme Court ruling that they said makes it illegal to use tax dollars for the practice.
In January, the procedure was removed as an elective option for women who work for the town of Apex.
