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

Abortion, , ,

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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Planned Parenthood Still Pushes Publicly Funded Sex-Education Despite Past Failures

Sex Education, , ,

Planned Parenthood is still promoting publicly funded sex-education despite the program’s past failures.

On Tuesday the nation’s leading abortion provider posted on X,

Hey state politicians sex ed in schools actually reduces the rate of unplanned pregnancies and STIs!

It’s almost as if giving young people the tools and education they need to make healthy decisions actually helps them make healthy decisions. Wild, right?

The irony is that government evaluations have shown Planned Parenthood’s publicly funded sex-education and family planning strategies simply do not work the way Planned Parenthood claims they do.

Several years ago the Obama Administration gave Planned Parenthood millions of dollars to conduct teen pregnancy prevention programs in the Pacific Northwest.

Afterwards, evaluations of Planned Parenthood’s sex-education program found students who went through it were often more likely to become pregnant or cause a pregnancy.

In other words, Planned Parenthood’s multimillion dollar sex-education program did exactly the opposite of what the federal government wanted.

In the 1980s and 1990s, public officials in Arkansas promoted Planned Parenthood-style sex-education, but the programs failed to have a meaningful impact on teen pregnancy and abortion in Arkansas.

Then in 1997 the Arkansas Legislature and Governor Mike Huckabee began promoting abstinence education in Arkansas. From 1997 to 2005, Arkansas’ teen birthrate decreased 17% — and Arkansas’ teen abortion rate plummeted a staggering 48%.

Governor Huckabee’s abstinence education model was so successful in Arkansas that it drew national recognition.

In 2016 — again, while President Barack Obama was still in office — the federal Centers for Disease Control released a 208-page report concluding teenagers who practice abstinence were healthier in nearly every way than teenagers who are sexually active.

The report looked at everything from seatbelt and bike helmet use to substance abuse, diet, exercise, and even tanning bed use.

The CDC found sexually-active teens were less healthy and engaged in riskier behavior across the board.

The report underscored that not only were abstinence education models like Arkansas’ effective at reducing teen pregnancy and abortion, but they also promoted healthier lifestyle choices across the board.

So while Planned Parenthood continues to promote public funding for its ineffective sex-education programs, Arkansas has shown there are much better ways to reduce teen pregnancy. Handing out tax dollars to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood simply is not the answer.

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

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

Abortion, , ,

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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