This article originally appear at the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life blog. Published with permission.
ST. PAUL — After 15 years of taxpayer-funded abortions, Minnesotans have funded more than 58,000 abortions at a cost of $18 million, according to a just-released report from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). Nearly all of these abortions have been elective.
Since its successful 1995 challenge to Minnesota’s law which prohibited funding of most abortions, the state’s abortion industry has steadily increased its taxpayer-funded procedure numbers and revenue by marketing taxpayer-funded abortions to low-income women. Taxpayers now pay for 32.7 percent of all abortions performed in the state — the highest percentage ever.
“Economically vulnerable women represent guaranteed revenue for the state’s abortion centers,” said Scott Fischbach, executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). “It is time to end abortionists’ money grab at the expense of poor women and their unborn children.”
Minnesota taxpayers have been required to fund elective abortions since the Minnesota Supreme Court’s 1995 Doe v. Gomez ruling. In that decision, the Court created a state “right” to abortion on demand and obligated all taxpayers to fund abortions.
Since the Doe v. Gomez ruling, taxpayers have paid $18,692,827 for a total of 58,552 abortion procedure claims. The 2010 numbers are $1,405,741 paid for 3,757 abortions. Prior to the court decision, taxpayers were charged about $7,000 per year for about 23 abortions in cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother.
Planned Parenthood posted big gains once again. Its abortion center in St. Paul increased its taxpayer-funded abortions by 3.2 percent in 2010, the largest increase of any provider. Planned Parenthood’s abortion marketing efforts to low-income and minority women have yielded a staggering 163-percent increase in its publicly funded abortions since 2000.
“Polls continue to show that most Minnesotans and most Americans are opposed to taxpayer funded abortions, yet they continue to be forced to pay for them,” Fischbach said.
The state also pays for the cost of “treatment of incomplete induced abortions”; the 2010 total was $11,970. This amount is expected to continue to increase, according to DHS, due in part to the increased promotion of RU486 chemical abortions, which have a failure rate of up to 5 percent. Planned Parenthood began offering RU486 “webcam abortions” in Rochester in 2010, in which a doctor in St. Paul administers the drugs remotely via video teleconference. The doctor never examines the woman prior to prescribing the drugs, increasing the risks to the woman.
MCCL helped to pass a ban on taxpayer-funded abortion during the 2011 legislative session; it was vetoed by Gov. Mark Dayton. The measure would have ended the forced funding by taxpayers of this mistreatment of poor women and the killing of unborn children.
