Council approves elective abortion insurance coverage for city workers

Cincinnati will shortly incorporate protection for elective abortions to well being insurance plan options for town staff. Council voted unanimously Wednesday to repeal a 2001 ordinance that prohibited that protection.

“What we can say is that we are obvious that women’s bodies do not belong to the government,” said Council Member Meeka Owens. “The capacity to self-ascertain what lifestyle, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness indicates is, in simple fact, an inherent correct, that we will do every thing in our electrical power to defend.”

The repeal lets Interim City Manager John Curp to modify the health insurance plan so that it handles elective abortions. The plan already handles abortion that is medically important. And about 1,600 of the city’s roughly 6,000 personnel already experienced full coverage for abortion providers mainly because it was negotiated as section of their AFSCME union contract.

The new protection will get result immediately.

Individually, the Metropolis Manager’s Place of work is drafting a plan to reimburse staff for travel charges associated with receiving an abortion, or for touring for any well being coverage not readily available within 150 miles. Particulars of the plan should really be available in about a week it will most likely be readily available to all town workers, not just those people getting well being insurance plan from the town.

And Mayor Aftab Pureval requested a report within just 30 days on how city government can “decriminalize” abortion in Cincinnati.

Abortion resolution passes 8-1

A resolution denouncing the overturning of Roe v. Wade passed without the need of the support of council’s only Republican: Liz Keating.

“The resolution as-is is significantly too extraordinary simply because it leaves open up the alternative of late phrase abortions, which is significantly past what Roe went in. I battle with that,” Keating claimed.

Keating supplied an modification to the resolution that would affirm an individual’s correct to abortion entry “up to the close of the very first trimester or when the daily life or well being of the mother is at hazard.”

Keating suggests she is individually extremely professional-lifetime, but also feels strongly that a woman has the ideal to make non-public wellness care selections with her well being treatment company.

“I am a Catholic, Republican, woman, mom, coming to the table to discover some consensus in this article to be equipped to make a effective statement in a thing that divides us so deeply in this state,” Keating said. “And I’m inquiring: wherever are my colleagues to occur alongside one another and come across some thing that we can agree on?”

The amendment failed without the need of a 2nd and the resolution passed 8-1.

The unique resolution claims the mayor and council oppose all laws to limit access to risk-free abortion. Read through the comprehensive text below: