GOP leadership offers bill banning state funding for abortion
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 8:18 am
- 15 Comments
Members of the Republican leadership in the Minnesota Senate have introduced legislation to ban state funding for abortions, just weeks after saying that creating jobs and fixing the budget deficit would be the party’s top priorities. The bill was offered on the eve of Minnesota Citizens Concerned For Life’s (MCCL) March for Life at the State Capitol grounds.
The bill, SF103, states, “Funding for state-sponsored health programs shall not be used for funding abortions, except to the extent necessary for continued participation in a federal program.”
The legislation is a reaction to a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court case, Doe v. Gomez, which said that if the state offers pregnancy services to low-income women it cannot discriminate between which procedures it offers, and the bill anticipates a constitutional challenge.
“If any one or more provision, section, subdivision, sentence, clause, phrase, or word of this section or the application of it to any person or circumstance is found to be unconstitutional,” the bill reads, “it is declared to be severable and the balance of this section shall remain effective notwithstanding such unconstitutionality.”
MCCL, the state’s largest anti-abortion group has been sharply critical of the 1995 ruling. “The Doe v. Gomez ruling by a handful of extremist judges has been disastrous for Minnesota women and their babies,” Scott Fischbach, MCCL’s executive director, said in a statement.
Fischbach’s wife, Sen. Michele Fischbach of Paynesville, is President of the Senate and cosponsor of the bill. Another GOP leader, Majority Leader Amy Koch, has signed on to cosponsor the bill, a move that contrasts her previous statements about making jobs a priority.
“There’s a lot of important issues and we will get to them. But the priority now is the budget, jobs, and the economy,” Koch told MPR just before the legislative session started.
Sen. David Hann of Eden Prairie, who serves as Assistant Majority Leader and chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, is also a cosponsor of the bill. It has been referred to his committee.
The other sponsors of the bill are freshman Sen. Dave Thompson, R-Lakeville, and Sen. Claire Robling, R-Jordan, who is also chair of the Finance Committee.
Reproductive rights groups assailed the introduction of the bill.
“Minnesotans know that we have different views on issues like abortion, and even though we may not agree on all points, our state Constitution has made sure all women have had the right to choose for more than 15 years,” said Linnea House, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota. “The anti-choice lawmakers want to focus on this issue at the expense of our state’s other priorities. They are overstepping in trying to force an anti-choice agenda that weakens our state’s Constitution. The budget crisis is critical, which makes it even more unbelievable that some lawmakers are attacking choice.”
She added, “Making the option of abortion accessible to all women did not create a budget crisis. In fact, this is a distraction from the state’s priorities.”
The bill’s Friday introduction was timed to precede Saturday’s March for Life, an MCCL event that brings about a 1,000 people to the Capitol to rally against abortion each year.
Saturday’s event drew the support of Minnesota’s Republican members of Congress as well as DFL Rep. Collin Peterson.
Rep. John Kline told the crowd that health reform legislation contained taxpayer funding for abortion. “You know that that awful legislation has language allowing taxpayer funding of abortion,” he said.
Despite Kline’s claim, independent fact-checkers, including FactCheck.org and Politifact, have frequently ruled “false” the that statement health care reform would pay for abortions.
Rep. Erik Paulsen said, “There is nothing more important than life,” while Rep. Michele Bachmann told the crowd, “We
can zero out that checking account with the stroke of a pen!” Rep. Chip Cravaack said, “This is just the start of a year dedicated to promoting and protecting a culture of life.”
Rep. Collin Peterson sent a written greeting to the rally. “I look forward to working with you over the next year as we continue to protect life for all human beings,” he said.
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter15 Comments
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 8:35 am
And then more people go around the system to get it cheaper by some quake and more people start dying yes yes we have been there before. These people really want to bring us back to the dark ages. No amount of funding cuts or laws will stop people from doing it.
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 8:42 am
Hey, Jeff. People have been paying for their own abortions since the procedure was invented. You don’t need taxpayer money to do the deed.
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 10:43 am
Another grate Republican idea, but duznt go far enuf.
No gubmint money for ANY medicine. It aint rite to make me pay to save some losers life. Its morally wrong to take peeples munny to pay for other people. Jesus never took charity or gave to poor people.
Jesus is for healin, not the gubmint. If these peeple wud pray, they wudnt get sick because Jesus wud take care of them. By givin them medicine, we get in Jesus way. Wen we giv them medicine, then they dont go beg at the church so Jesus dont get involved there ether. Jesus never had no free clinic, he just heeled peeple in the street.
The only peeple who shud get medicine is peeple with munny, becuz they got munny cuz Jesus likes them. Want Jesus to like you so you can get munny? Pray.
God Bless America!
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 11:45 am
When women have to choose between paying their rent and paying for their abortions, they end up at shady, back-alley “clinics’ like the one busted in Philadelphia. Kermit Gosnell took advantage of abortion’s stigma and inaccessibility to abuse poor women, often women of color and/or immigrant women. Doe v. Gomez corrects that economic inequality.
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 11:58 am
Government subsidizing abortion is tantamount to encouraging it. If republicans supported paying for the poor and racial minorities to have abortions you’d say it was racist. But they’re not. They’re DIScouraging the poor and racial minorities from killing their babies.
It’s the democrats who want to make it easy for poor black mothers to have abortions. Their arguments sound eerily like Margaret Sanger’s.
http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 12:25 pm
“Funding for state-sponsored health programs shall not be used for funding abortions, except to the extent necessary for continued participation in a federal program.”
So state-sponsored health care is all about money, and not about the health needs and individual rights of the citizens. Why don’t we just shut down the government and let corporations run the country? They have no responsibility to the citizens either.
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 5:50 pm
When we begin criminalizing the male part of an unwanted pregnancy, there is nothing you can tell me about what happens within my body. Fact is, women make up over half of the tax-base in this nation so that is a false argument. This issue is a preserving white birth numbers issue and nothing more.
Comment posted January 24, 2011 @ 6:05 pm
Dennis is rite again!
Republicans are tryin to make sure poor and beaners and such cant kill their babies befor the babies is born. After that, we can let em die and its a win win. Cause beaners are just here for free medical care. Thats why Republicans want to deny medical care for beaner babies after they is born. See why that makes sence?
God bless America where we have one of the highest rates of infant mortality. See how it works? Ya cant have all these babies dying if they duznt get born first. So they dont get medical before the baby is born and they dont get medical after the baby is born so the baby dies. Thats how much we luv life and babies. We luv babies but we dont luv slut womans who have sex when they dont have munny. Republicans are ok with whores, tho, cause they have munny afterward.
That activist Supreem Cort said abortion is legal, well only if ya got munny, just like all other rights. Want munny? Pray to Jesus, Jesus will make you rich. Rich peeple can have abortions all the time, until we make it so they have to fly to another country.
Good Bless America!
Comment posted January 25, 2011 @ 5:55 am
It’s hard for me to believe that after 9/11, after Iraq, after the Katrina response, after bank deregulation, after environmental deregulation after FDA deregulation and the Millions that have died from all of this put together that the Republicans Actually Care About Life!!! He He He He He He He!! The only protection of life these nut balls believe in is for the Almighty Fetus.. As soon as your a living Breathing Human your on your own!! Well send you off to War and cut your Medicare ..
Comment posted January 25, 2011 @ 8:13 am
@Dennis
My mother is actually an ex- bra burning hippie and she is Pro Choice.. Believe it or not Pro Choice Mothers actually do have babies..
Comment posted January 25, 2011 @ 8:15 am
Re-Re @ Dennis Pro Choice Mama’s Just want the Gub-Ment out of their vagina’s…
Comment posted January 25, 2011 @ 8:42 am
God bless our Empire and stop preventing the birth of our soldiers. We need the troops. Copulate for our freedom, ban condoms and give bonuses for twins!
We are in competition here folks…do your part!
p.s. Walmart sells condoms, picket the infidels!
God Bless
Comment posted February 7, 2011 @ 4:50 pm
can i have a ban on goverment provided woodies?
Comment posted February 7, 2011 @ 4:53 pm
and im sorry but Rep. doesnt even live in this state anymore. he has a residence here but lives most of his time in DC.
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