The following news release was issued on April 4, 2016.
ST. PAUL — After 19 years of taxpayer-funded abortions, Minnesotans are paying for 39 percent of all abortions performed in the state. Taxpayers have funded more than 73,000 abortions at a cost of $22.5 million, according to a just-released report from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). Taxpayer-funded abortions numbered almost 4,000 in Minnesota in 2014; nearly all of those abortions were elective.
Taxpayers are forced to fund abortions due to a successful 1995 challenge to 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 39 percent of all abortions (up from 34.2 percent in 2013), the highest percentage ever.
"Aggressive promotion of abortion to economically vulnerable women is enriching the state’s abortion industry," said Scott Fischbach, Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). "It is time to end this exploitation of low-income 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 $22,507,205 for a total of 73,171 abortion procedure claims. Taxpayers' 2014 portion (the latest available) was $953,187 for 3,957 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 40 percent in 2014, after rising 45 percent in 2012 and 2013. Planned Parenthood increased its revenues from taxpayer funded abortions in 2014 by 39 percent to $410,713; it filed claims for 1,801 abortions, which represented 45 percent of the claims that year.
Whole Woman's Health, which purchased and merged two abortion facilities in Minneapolis, filed 1,081 abortion claims, the second most. The abortion business has paid several large fines for breaking the law in Texas. Legislation currently before Minnesota lawmakers (S.F. 616, H.F. 606) would require the state’s five surgical abortion facilities to be licensed and inspected by the Department of Health as outpatient surgical centers. None is licensed or inspected by the state.
"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. Similar legislation (S.F. 683, H.F. 607) was introduced last year in the Minnesota Senate and House of Representatives. The measure would end the forced funding by taxpayers of this mistreatment of poor women and the killing of unborn children.
