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Protecting Taxpayers from Sponsoring Abortions
Friday, January 20, 2012

Missouri has a long history of prohibiting public funds to be used to pay for abortions, unless the abortion is necessary to save the mother's life. This makes sense regardless of one's views as to whether abortion should be legal. I am of the belief that a person's life begins at conception and so abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. Should my tax dollars be used to support and pay for an action I believe to be an unjust killing of innocent human life? I would be made an accomplice against my will.



In these economic times, I do not believe that I have to work very hard to convince the good people in my district that their tax payments should be used to fund unnecessary abortions. Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers receive significant amounts of money from the federal government pursuant to Title X of the federal Public Health Service Act, more commonly known as simply "Title X." Title X is a program for the federal government to fund family planning programs run by various clinics, so long as Title X funds are not used for programs where abortion is considered a method of family planning.



So what's the problem? Public funds should not be used to fund abortions and both Missouri and the federal government have taken preventative to ensure that public funds are not used to pay for abortions. The problem is that money is easily manipulated. Say I had an alcoholic friend who I gave money to under the strict conditions that my money not be used to buy more alcohol. My friend takes the money and buys some groceries. Now he has extra grocery money and he buys some alcohol. He never used my money to buy alcohol, he used his own.



Planned Parenthood takes Title X funds from the federal government and uses the money to defray the cost of abortions. A worker will tell the mother not to say whether she wants to have an abortion or not and then will use the Title X funds to do a preliminary ultrasound and other work necessary preparative work for an abortion. Once the preparation is done, the worker will ask the mother if she wants and abortion and then will charge only for the actual abortive procedures. Title X funds can be used for follow up care once the abortion is completed. Title X funds never actually paid for the abortive act, but indeed were used to ensure that the Planned Parenthood could provide abortions at the cheapest rate possible.



I have filed a bill which will require abortion providers who receive Title X funds to file an accounting with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services which will account for every penny received through Title X. This accounting will be a public record and the identity of the patients of the abortion providers will be protected. Our tax dollars are being given to organizations such as Planned Parenthood by the federal government and we should be able to see just exactly how our money is being spent.