Missouri Passes Pro-Life Law Barring Taxpayer Funds From Going to Abortionists and Their Affiliates

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On Friday Missouri Governor Mike Parson signed a law preventing taxpayer funds from going to abortionists and their affiliates.

Missouri already prevents public funds from directly paying for abortions. The new law helps further ensure that Missouri’s taxpayer dollars don’t indirectly subsidize abortion and abortionists.

The law is similar to measures Arkansas has passed over the years to prevent state funds and government contracts from going to abortionists and their affiliates.

Groups like Planned Parenthood divide their organization into regional and national affiliates. That can make it difficult to know if taxpayer funds given to one affiliate directly or indirectly subsidize abortion at another affiliate. This type of legislation helps address that problem by clarifying that abortionists’ affiliates cannot receive taxpayer funds at all.

As states like Arkansas and Missouri take steps to prohibit abortion and provide support for women and families with unplanned pregnancies, it’s important to make sure taxpayer dollars do not promote abortion.

Right now an amendment effort is underway that threatens to nullify all of Arkansas pro-life laws — including Arkansas’ laws against taxpayer-funded abortion.

Arkansans for Limited Government is collecting petition signatures to place the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the November ballot.

If passed, the amendment would write abortion into the state constitution, allowing thousands of elective abortions in Arkansas every year.

The amendment does not contain any medical licensing or health and safety standards for abortion, and it automatically nullifies all state laws that conflict with the amendment. That jeopardizes even the most basic restrictions on abortion.

The amendment also would pave the way for taxpayer-funded abortion in Arkansas by changing Amendment 68 to the Arkansas Constitution that currently prohibits taxpayer funded abortion in the state.

Arkansans have generally opposed taxpayer-funded abortion, but taxpayer-funded abortion through all nine months of pregnancy could become a reality in Arkansas if the abortion amendment passes.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Governor Signs Measure Providing $2M in Grants to Support Pregnancy Centers, Maternal Wellness in Arkansas

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On Tuesday Governor Sanders signed a budget measure providing $2 million to support pregnancy help organizations and maternal and infant wellness in Arkansas.

The funding will provide grants to pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies, and other organizations that provide material support to women with unplanned pregnancies.

For years, states across America have taken steps to provide pregnancy resource centers with state and federal tax money to support the services they provide.

This funding helps serve families at the local level without creating new government programs.

In 2022 Family Council worked with the legislature and the governor to secure $1 million for pregnancy centers. This funding provided grants to more than 20 pregnancy help organizations.

Last year we worked with lawmakers to renew this funding, and since then more than two dozen good organizations across the state have applied for this money and used it to give women and families real assistance when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

S.B. 64 makes improvements to the grant program. It increases state funding from $1 million per year to $2 million. This puts Arkansas’ funding on parr with funding in other states.

The law also clarifies that “pregnancy help organizations” include nonprofit organizations that promote infant and maternal wellness and reduce infant and maternal mortality by:

  • Providing nutritional information and/or nutritional counseling;
  • Providing prenatal vitamins;
  • Providing a list of prenatal medical care options;
  • Providing social, emotional, and/or material support; or
  • Providing referrals for WIC and community-based nutritional services, including but not limited to food banks, food pantries, and food distribution centers.

The measure includes language preventing state funds from going to abortionists and their affiliates.

This legislation is something Arkansans can be proud of. Family Council is grateful to the General Assembly for passing S.B. 64, and we appreciate Governor Sanders signing it into law. We look forward to seeing the state implement the expanded grant program in the coming fiscal year.

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Mary Rose Doe Reminds Us of the Horrors of Unrestricted Abortion on Demand

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On April 28, 1983, an eight-year-old boy playing by his yard near Little Rock’s Cantrell Road discovered baby Mary Rose Doe lying dead in a drainage ditch.

Mary was 16 inches long and weighed five pounds. She was seven months gestation, with a full head of auburn hair, brown eyes, and ivory skin.

The State Medical Examiner’s autopsy determined Mary asphyxiated in the womb as a result of a legal abortion.

Mary’s lifeless body was delivered and — for reasons nobody has ever been able to determine — she was abandoned in a drainage ditch. She probably had been dead only a few hours when her body was found.

The State Medical Examiner described Mary as “a perfect little bud that was clipped before she could blossom.”

Mary’s death serves as a grisly reminder of the horrors of unrestricted abortion on demand.

In 1983 abortion was legal and largely unregulated in Arkansas.

In the spring of that year, the state legislature passed Act 509 instituting some of Arkansas’ first meaningful restrictions on abortion facilities. However, those regulations did not take effect for many months. None of them was in place when Baby Mary Rose Doe was aborted—and then abandoned—in Little Rock.

Abortions like the one that took Mary Rose Doe’s life are one reason Arkansas began enacting pro-life laws such as health and safety standards for abortionists and abortion facilities.

In May of 1983, North Pulaski Pro-Life assumed guardianship of Mary’s remains, and the group made arrangements for her burial.

North Pulaski Pro-Life’s Treasurer and his wife provided Mary with a dress that had belonged to their daughters.

North Little Rock Funeral Home gave her a small coffin. The Catholic Diocese of Little Rock provided her with a grave plot in Little Rock’s Calvary Cemetery.

And North Pulaski Pro-Life gave her a name: Mary Rose Doe.

On May 16, 1983—less than three weeks after her body was found—some 100 people attended a graveside service for Mary at Calvary Cemetery in Little Rock. According to a news report at the time, the group sang “Amazing Grace” and heard from two ministers—one a Church of Christ preacher and the other a Catholic priest—who both called for an end to abortion.

White linen, rosebuds, and daisies covered Mary’s casket. A small marker was placed on her grave—a memorial to Mary Rose Doe and the thousands of other unborn children aborted in Arkansas.

Today, abortion in Arkansas is generally prohibited except to save the life of the mother. Mary’s body rests in a quiet corner of Calvary Cemetery near the intersection of South Woodrow and Asher Avenue in Little Rock. Her grave lies just a short drive across town from the place her body was discovered 41 years ago.

Mary’s story is still relevant. Right now an effort is underway in Arkansas to write abortion into the state constitution; this would threaten to nullify even basic health and safety standards for abortionists and abortion facilities. Arkansas has been down that road before. Mary Rose Doe’s brief life and tragic death remind us exactly what unrestricted abortion on demand looks like.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers. Information in this article was adapted from Family Council’s update letter dated April of 2020 and from news articles published in 1983.

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