With just weeks left in the legislative session, the Missouri Senate has passed a $46 billion budget proposal, which now must be approved for the House. The budget includes a ban on state funding being used to reimburse Planned Parenthood, completely defunding the abortion chain within the state of Missouri.
Earlier this month, the Missouri House passed a pro-life omnibus bill that has since been sent on to the Senate. That particular bill would defund Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funding and “would ban the mail distribution of the abortion pill, outlaw the donation of fetal tissue, and allow wrongful death lawsuits to be brought against an abortionist if the infant survives the abortion and later dies or is injured. Rapists would be blocked from filing a lawsuit,” according to a previous Live Action News report.
Currently, Planned Parenthood receives taxpayer dollars through the state Medicaid program. Though the payments cannot be earmarked for abortion, giving money to Planned Parenthood enables the business to use other financial resources for abortions, thereby increasing the number they’re able to commit.
READ: Judge orders Missouri to pay legal fees for Planned Parenthood facility that injured dozens of women
Sen. Jill Schupp, however, complained that defunding Planned Parenthood would rob people of their needed health care. “I for one would not want to be the party responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars being lost to the state of Missouri and the ending of a program that helps support not only people but the providers who depend upon being reimbursed for the services that they provide.”
Yet Planned Parenthood is not a health care provider upon which countless Americans rely. Only 3% of women of reproductive age in the entire country are clients at Planned Parenthood.
Among the small percentage of women Planned Parenthood serves, it performs less than 2% of all cancer screenings, less than 2% of all breast exams, and less than 1% of all pap exams in the United States. Meanwhile, as the few legitimate health care services it does provide have been steadily falling, the number of abortions the corporation commits has been rising.
Planned Parenthood has already begun mobilizing to ensure it continues to get state taxpayer funding. In March, the corporation filed a lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Social Services, claiming restrictions against funding it are illegal and unconstitutional. “The Medicaid law is clear, and Missouri is in desperate need of providers committed to seeing everyone who needs them,” interim president for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, Emily Wales, said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood is just that: A provider whose doors are open.”
Yet no matter what Planned Parenthood says, abortion is not health care, and it is never medically necessary. Previous polling has revealed that 76% of taxpayers oppose using taxpayer dollars (which is what Medicaid funding is) to fund abortions.
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