Acknowledging that he is going back on a campaign pledge, Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer announced that he will not ask the state legislature for more money to help poor women obtain abortions. Instead, he plans to put more money in the budget to help poor women who want to bear children and put them up for adoption.

He also hopes to revise state laws to make adoption easier. Governor Schaefer said, “I’m more interested in the baby being born and adoption. Adoption ought to be easy. This is going to be a very heavy disappointment to people who are in favor of more lenient [abortion-funding] language. I said I was going to make the language more lenient. That’s going to cause a lot of problems for me.”

The announcement came on the same day that pro-lifers delivered petitions from more than 80,000 people opposed to Medicaid funding of abortions. The petitions were circulated by a dozen groups, ranging from church groups to Libertarians for Life demonstrating unprecedented state pro-life unity.

The Washington Times observed that Governor Schaefer had hinted of his change of heart on abortion funding the previous week when he wore a Precious Feet lapel pin at a public function. The pin displays, at actual size, a baby’s feet at ten weeks gestational age, complete with fully-formed toes.

The state of Maryland has been spending approximately $2 million a year to pay for 4,000 abortions under the Medicaid program.