Today, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed two pro-life bills that will help further de-fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business in the Badger State after it was caught across the country selling the body parts of aborted babies for profit.
Walker signed the bills at Life’s Connection, a women’s health clinic in Waukesha that helps promote abortion alternatives.
AB 310/SB 237, which has already been passed by the State Assembly, redirects federal Title X family planning funds away from organizations that perform abortions, meaning $3.5 million taxpayer dollars will be driven away from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. SB 238/AB 311 dramatically reduces Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s artificially inflated Medicaid reimbursement rates, and will eliminate $4.5 million taxpayer funds that have previously gone to Planned Parenthood.
Heather Weininger, Executive Director of Wisconsin Right to Life, told Lifenews previously” “These bills, AB 310 and SB 238, are essential steps towards steering funds away from an organization that has been mired in controversy. [They are] two key bills to curb Planned Parenthood’s use of taxpayer dollars in the state of Wisconsin.”
Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, author of the bill, talked about his legislation.
“This is a consistent stance with where I have always been, where many others in this body have always been, and that is, we are going to protect life,” Kapenga said. “I believe that that begins at conception, and I believe that one of the cornerstones of the Declaration of Independence and what our Constitution is drafted around is the protection of life.”
Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, argued the bills aren’t about protection of life, but rather about passing a vindictive agenda.
Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, rejected the premise that Republicans are going after birth control. He disputed the argument that access can be challenged, arguing, “I think it’s pretty easy to find. At least, that’s the way I thought it was.”
“Women’s birth control? I’m for women’s birth control. I think probably most everybody else here is, too. That’s not an issue,” Stroebel said. “I support women’s health care. I think everybody else here does. What we don’t support is a taxpayer subsidy for a private abortion provider. That’s what this bill is about. We are for women’s health care, and we want to see that that is available.”
Five Planned Parenthood clinics have closed since Gov. Scott Walker cut off the organization’s state funding in 2011.
Wisconsin Right to Life’s Executive Director Heather Weininger said there are better candidates for Title X funds are the 16 non-controversial, federally-qualified health centers operating in 96 service sites around the state of Wisconsin that provide women health care services.
“We need to look past puffed up claims such as the belief that without Planned Parenthood, women will not have access to care like mammograms. The reality is, not a single Planned Parenthood facility provides mammograms within their doors, just referrals to health care facilities that do provide them,” she said.
Weininger added: “By the admission of Planned Parenthood’s President and CEO Teresa Huyck in her deposition for Planned Parenthood v. Van Hollen, in 2012 alone Planned Parenthood performed about 4,000 abortions, approximately 60% of all Wisconsin abortions in that year, and the “vast majority” of the services in the Appleton North and Milwaukee-Jackson centers are abortion.”
According to Wisconsin Right to Life, based on the numbers from Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s 2013-2014 Annual Report, 19 out of every 20 pregnant women who walk through their doors are sold abortion, and abortion outnumbers adoption referrals by a ratio of 174 to one. Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortion makes up “3 percent” of its services is conjured up by parceling out each individual service it does, from a pregnancy test to a pap smear, even if all of these services are done at one visit, with one client, which is a gross manipulation of their numbers.
Congress has had multiple hearings investigating numerous abuses and potential violation of multiple laws to sell aborted baby parts.
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