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Wisconsin Budget Redirects Funds away from Planned Parenthood

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently signed a budget bill which redirects $1 million in state and federal family planning funds away from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin toward other providers of family planning services.  According to  LifeNews.com , “in 2010 Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin received more than $18 million in federal and state family planning funds that it claims has reduced abortions. However, the abortion business did 5,439 abortions in 2009, a 56% increase from 2008. Three of the nine Planned Parenthood centers in the state do abortions and the other six make referrals for abortions.”  These facts call to mind Richard Stith’s June 25th post regarding the conflict of interest of a women’s clinic, which provides contraceptive services and pregnancy counseling, also providing abortion services.    Thankfully Wisconsin’s very pro-life governor is moving in the right direction.  There are still tax dollars supporting Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin, but this is a start.  And perhaps other state budgets will be moving toward the defunding that is already happening in Wisconsin, Kansas, Indiana, New Hampshire, and possibly Texas.  See this Milwaukee JSOnline article for further details.

 Maybe the growing unpopularity of Planned Parenthood following the controversial operations of  Live Action is having good effect.  See Janet Smith’s defense of this group’s tactics in the latest edition of First Things as well as Christopher Tollefson’s criticism of the group’s actions in Public Discourse.

Barbara Freres