Topeka ? A bill to provide state health insurance coverage for the unborn children of pregnant women became a battle over abortion during a legislative hearing Thursday.

“The long-term goal of this bill is to make abortion illegal,” Julie Burkhardt, executive director of Wichita-based abortion rights group Pro Kan Do, told the House Insurance Committee.

But anti-abortion advocates said the bill would ensure prenatal care for an estimated 700 women who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance.

“Our support is based on the importance of ensuring adequate health care for children, both before and after birth,” said Beatrice Swoopes, associate director of the Kansas Catholic Conference. She was joined in support of the bill by the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life.

The dispute focused on a bill that would require the expansion of Health Wave to include unborn children of pregnant women.

Health Wave is a state-run insurance program that provides health coverage for children from birth to 19 years old who are in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but still have difficulty buying private insurance.

Health Wave covers prenatal care for pregnant women up to age 19 who meet the income guidelines.

But now the federal government, which provides about three-fourths of the funding for Health Wave, is allowing states the option of expanding eligibility for fetuses, regardless of the mother’s age as long as she meets the income guidelines.

Rep. Patricia Barbieri-Lightner, R-Overland Park, and chair of the insurance committee, said she supported the bill and chastised its opponents.

“What you’re really against is unborn babies,” she said to Burkhardt.

But Burkhardt said she feared conferring insurance eligibility to the fetus could make the health care of the mother secondary in some cases, such as if the mother needed radiation treatments for cancer.

She was joined by representatives of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and Kansas NOW in opposing the bill.

Rep. Nancy Kirk, D-Topeka, also said the cost of the bill — about $1 million in state funds — would mean that at some point, some health care would have to be denied because Health Wave is limited by its annual appropriation.