By Matt Lamb (Life Site News) – May 1, 2024
The bill, which awaits Missouri Republican Governor Mike Parson’s signature, bans state Medicaid tax dollars from funding Planned Parenthood and any other abortion vendors.
House Bill 2634 prohibits state Medicaid tax dollars from going to Planned Parenthood and any other abortion vendor.
LifeSiteNews emailed the governor’s media relations team on Tuesday morning, but it has yet to respond. A staffer in the governor’s office took a phone message on Tuesday afternoon reminding about the inquiry asking if the governor plans to sign the bill.
Abortion is banned in Missouri except in cases of “medical emergency.” Medical experts affirm, however, that direct abortion is never medically necessary to save the life or protect the health of the mother, in addition to it being the unjustifiable murder of an unborn child.
However, the money that Planned Parenthood receives for other services helps subsidize its abortion businesses. Defunding Planned Parenthood, therefore, helps protects babies from being killed by making it more difficult for the nation’s largest abortion business to operate.
Legislators cited video from Project Veritas showing Missouri Planned Parenthood workers coaching an undercover journalist on how to get a 13-year-old girl an abortion in Kansas.
Even though an adult male asking how to get an abortion for a teenage girl would immediately raise concerns about rape, trafficking, and kidnapping, Planned Parenthood was eager to help.
As previously reported by LifeSiteNews:
During the five-minute video report from Project Veritas, the group’s undercover journalist goes into a Planned Parenthood facility with the story that he is ‘looking into’ the option of abortion for a minor girl whose ‘parents don’t know yet’ that she’s pregnant. Lashauna, the managing director at the Kansas City Planned Parenthood, tells him, ‘We don’t do them [abortions] here… It’s illegal. But I can give you a packet of the two locations that do it in Kansas.’
A Missouri legislator played the video during debate over the bill.
Republicans and pro-life leaders celebrated the passage of the bill.
“Honored to lead the successful #DefundPP effort in the Senate. With @GovParsonMO’s signature no taxpayer funds for abortion providers will be allowed in Missouri,” State Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Safeguarding innocent lives and ensuring women’s health & safety is paramount.”
Coleman has six children with her husband and is also an attorney with the pro-life Thomas More Society legal group.
Missouri Right to Life highlighted Planned Parenthood’s focus on abortion. It also noted the lengthy battle leaders had undertaken to defund the abortion vendor.
“Prior to 2020, Missouri restricted family planning funds to abortion providers through the budget process,” the pro-life group wrote. “In 2020, Planned Parenthood and others filed suit against that defunding process and the Missouri Supreme Court agreed that it was unconstitutional but also stated that the defunding could be done by placing the pro-life protective language in statute.”
“Since then, the legislature has attempted to use different language in the budget which has all been found unconstitutional,” the group wrote.
It wrote further:
In their just released 2022-2023 annual report, Planned Parenthood reported total income of over 2 billion dollars. For the year the annual report covers, Planned Parenthood [committed] 392,715 abortions, or about 4 in 10 abortions, and abortions outnumbered prenatal care 62 to 1. In addition, Planned Parenthood boosted its abortion numbers by facilitating “transportation and travel support, financial assistance, and referrals.
“Pro-life Missourians are grateful to House Sponsor, Representative Cody Smith and Senate Handler, Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman and the Missouri legislators who voted for protecting our firmly held beliefs in the sanctity of human life and prohibiting our tax-dollars from subsidizing the destruction of innocent unborn babies.”
