The following news release was issued on April 9, 2014.
ST. PAUL — Taxpayer-funded abortions numbered more than 3,500 in Minnesota in 2012. After 17 years of taxpayer-funded abortions, Minnesotans have funded more than 65,000 abortions at a cost of $20.7 million, according to a just-released report from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). Nearly all of these abortions have been elective.
The state's abortion industry in 1995 successfully challenged Minnesota's law which prohibited funding of most abortions. Since then, abortion advocates have steadily marketed taxpayer-funded abortions to low-income women. Taxpayers now pay for 33.4 percent of all abortions performed in the state, compared to less than one percent before 1995.
"The state's abortion facilities take a steady stream of taxpayer revenue by targeting economically vulnerable women," said Scott Fischbach, Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). "It is time to end this exploitation 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, including purely elective procedures.
Since the Doe v. Gomez ruling, taxpayers have paid $20,737,288 for a total of 65,823 abortion procedure claims. Taxpayers' 2012 portion (the latest available) was $822,403 for 3,571 abortions. Prior to the court decision, taxpayers were charged about $7,000 per year for about two dozen abortions in cases of rape and incest and to save the life of the mother.
Planned Parenthood's taxpayer funded abortion claims rose 32 percent in 2012 after Regions Hospital closed its abortion facility at the end of 2011. Planned Parenthood increased its revenues from taxpayer funded abortions by 30 percent to $255,192.
"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.
MCCL helped to pass a ban on taxpayer funded abortion during the 2011 legislative session; it was vetoed by Gov. Mark Dayton. The Minnesota House of Representatives approved the same legislation Apr. 3; the Senate defeated it on Apr. 8. The measure would end the forced funding by taxpayers of this mistreatment of poor women and the killing of unborn children.
