As the Iowa Legislature debates whether taxpayers will be compelled to continue giving millions of dollars annually to abortion providers and advocates, a powerful voice of conscience has risen on the House floor.
Rep. Sandy Salmon, R-Black Hawk, made the following, stirring comments on Tuesday, April 20, 2016.
As fellow pro-life champion Rep. Greg Heartsill declared in a widely distributed email afterwards, “Please join me in encouraging and thanking Rep. Salmon for her courageous, principled, and indefatigable stand for the unborn!”
I want to thank House leaders and committee leaders for bringing forward this change in our family planning services program that not only maintains services to our families, but steers them towards better and more comprehensive health care providers and away from organizations that kill unborn children.
This amendment is brought forward to fully cut off taxpayer funding from organizations that kill unborn children. The state family planning program that excludes abortionists that Rep. Fry has explained to us is only one of 11 streams of taxpayer funding the state can control that I have found that goes to abortionists. This amendment addresses the other 10 streams of taxpayer funding going to them. It does this 2 ways:
1) When a contract with an abortionist expires, it is simply not renewed with them. All contracts expire on various dates this summer. A non-abortionist must be chosen.
2) Title X Family Planning moneys are required to be distributed according to the same prioritization as are the moneys in the state family planning program we are setting up.
Iowans have 213 federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics besides those in urban centers where healthcare can be accessed without depending on the few abortionists in the state. These health care centers/clinics serve low-income, medically under-served populations, and provide comprehensive primary and preventive healthcare as compared to abortionists’ limited healthcare options, but do not commit abortion. Therefore, abortionists are not needed and certainly do not need taxpayer funding.
About 4500 babies each year lose their lives in Iowa at the hands of abortionists. This is the equivalent of a kindergarten class being killed every 2 days in our state. Abortion accounts for about 50% of abortionists’ health services revenue. Their activities result in deadly consequences for babies and mothers, both physical and/or emotional. Those organizations do not strengthen us as a state but rather their culture of death weakens us spiritually, morally, and in our respect for human life and the rights of others. As if that is not enough, what would 180 more kindergarten classes across the state of Iowa do for our schools’ struggles with declining enrollment? How much does this contribute to a stagnating population? How much does this contribute to an undermanned workforce? How much does this weaken our economy? How much easier would it be to provide services and lower taxes with a greater population and an increased tax base? Organizations that kill unborn children cut us off from the blessings that God wants to give us. They devalue the life God has given us, a life that has inestimable value in His sight.
Abortion has ruined our judgment and has spawned multiple forms of corruption. A lawsuit is currently being litigated against abortionists in our state in federal court over a credible allegation of Medicaid fraud according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. This case involves about half a million potential false claims worth up to $28 million of potential taxpayer fraud. Federal law requires a State Medicaid agency to suspend all payments to a provider where there is a credible allegation of fraud.
Furthermore, there are numerous government audit reports demonstrating Medicaid fraud on the part of these abortionists. Most recently they were fingered by the Nebraska State Auditor for Medicaid billing for abortion-related procedures, which is illegal. We have moved legislation in this chamber in response to videos revealing the illegal harvesting and selling for lucrative profit of aborted baby body parts. The U.S. House of Representative just released a report tonight from their investigation proving this very thing. Video footage and lawsuits also reveal abortionists disregarding states’ informed consent laws, disregarding states’ regulations for clinics, and disregarding sexual abuse laws and protecting statutory rapists and protecting sex traffickers. What law have they met that they consider important enough that they should obey it? Nearly a dozen states have already suspended public funding to abortionists, including Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin who has done so with the same abortionists we have here in Iowa, and this past January the U.S. Congress, in a historic vote, chose to defund abortionists.
The state of Iowa should have no part in doing business with organizations such as this. Credible research polls show that when Iowans know the facts, they are opposed to it. Iowans support better and more comprehensive healthcare than they could get with abortionists.
Where we put our money is where we put our heart. Iowans want us to put our money not in death but in life.
