Commentary by Jim Sedlak
Earlier this week, I was in Concord, New Hampshire testifying in favor of Senate Bill 77 ? a bill prohibiting the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services from entering into any contracts with Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider in the state. While this version of the bill did not successfully clear a stacked legislative committee, the fact that it even received a hearing is an encouraging sign. Similar signs are taking place all over the country now, and despite this particular setback, it's clear that the mood of the nation is changing and Planned Parenthood's taxpayer funding is now seriously at risk.
Earlier that morning, I spoke on two talk radio programs in New Hampshire, as it was clear that interest in the bill was keen.
It was obvious from the start that the senate committee holding the hearings was more interested in fulfilling a requirement than it was interested in listening to the citizens involved. The first clue was that this public hearing, on a subject full of emotion and close to the hearts of many in New Hampshire, was scheduled to last just 45 minutes. It started 10 minutes late, but the committee chair was determined that it be ended on time.
Over 60 people crowded into the small hearing room. The signup sheet revealed that all but six were in favor of the bill. When the hearing began, those testifying were cut short when the chair thought enough had been said. That, of course, included my testimony. Before I was cut off, I was able to get into the record important information about Planned Parenthood's deadly attack on our preborn babies and its targeting of young people for its money-making businesses.
As the committee rushed to conclusion, it seemed no coincidence that the last person to speak was a representative from Planned Parenthood. The agenda was clear when one of the committee members, who formerly worked with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, asked some softball questions designed to show that the proposed law was wrong.
It came as no surprise then that, within two hours of the conclusion of the hearing, the committee voted 5-0 against the bill.
That afternoon and the next day, I did additional radio interviews on stations all across the country. After all, the interest in taking all taxpayer money away from Planned Parenthood is not something reserved to the people in New Hampshire.
Already in the United States, there are six states–Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia–that report they give no state funds to Planned Parenthood. An additional five states–Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wyoming–report that they give less than $5,000 to Planned Parenthood. Still other states, including Ohio, Texas, Missouri and Colorado, have already started taking state money away from Planned Parenthood and are working towards getting the dollar amount down to zero.
That's 15 states that already understand the harm Planned Parenthood does to our children. Many more states, like New Hampshire , are in the early stages of taking the state money from the organization that runs the largest abortion chain in the nation, killing over 250,000 babies a year through medical and surgical abortion.
We, of course, are delighted to see this trend developing. We have worked for over three decades to educate the public on the true nature of Planned Parenthood and the truth is being heard. When you take this real movement to deny state funding to Planned Parenthood and couple it with the closure of over 120 Planned Parenthood facilities over the last 11 years, clearly public support for Planned Parenthood is plunging.
Planned Parenthood, of course, is not just going to sit back and watch this happen. In order to replace the state funding, Planned Parenthood is trying to get more money through federal government programs. Already, Planned Parenthood has engineered a situation where, in eight states (Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Wisconsin) it receives Title X money directly from the federal government, meaning the state lawmakers have no say. In the current Congress it has introduced S.21, the Prevention First Act, federal legislation to almost triple its Title X funds; setting the stage for massive increased funding to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid, the largest single program subsidizing it.
The good news is that people all across the country are becoming aware of Planned Parenthood's incessant need for taxpayer money and are working with legislators at the state and federal level to cut it off. The folks at New Hampshire Right to Life are not discouraged by the actions of the committee. They are determined to come back next year, and the year after, for as long as it takes to cut off the flow of state money to Planned Parenthood.
The same intentions are growing all across the country. With 15 states already in the process of zeroing out Planned Parenthood funding, and many more to come, we know that we will spend a great deal of time in the coming years helping citizens regain control of their money at all levels of government. Planned Parenthood, take notice: Your days of unbridled access to the public treasury are numbered.
Release issued: 2 Feb 07