2016 | Week of August 29 | #1166
Last week I reported good news on the transgender agenda push. This week I’m pleased to continue this trend of good news with a report on the pro-life issue in Wisconsin.
To begin let’s just summarize the last few years on this issue as it relates to the law. Since 2014, Wisconsin has passed laws that require women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound; banned abortions on babies over 20 weeks gestation; required abortionists to, as much as possible, assure a woman is not being coerced into an abortion; prohibited telemed abortions; required abortionists to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortions are being performed (this is tied up in the courts currently); redirected $1 million a year of general-purpose taxpayer revenue from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin; stopped Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin from overbilling the state—and its taxpayers—for drugs it purchases and dispenses through a Medicaid program; and required the State of WI to apply for Title X funds which for over 30 years have been going directly to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. Oh, and we also stopped Wisconsin taxpayers from having to pay for abortions performed using Obamacare health insurance exchanges.
I think to most anyone who is at all fair-minded, this is an impressive body of work. Add to this more awareness of the horror of abortion in the culture at large, at least in part because of the videos that were released last summer showing Planned Parenthood complicit in the egregious buying and selling of the body parts of aborted babies.
So given this summary, perhaps it’s not totally surprising that we have good news to report on this life-and-death issue.
Last week Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin announced that one of its facilities that has provided abortions would remain closed. In late October 2015, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin announced it was closing this facility for 6 months. At that time, officials said it was because of a “temporary gap in medical coverage.”[1] In case you’re wondering what that means, we are pretty sure it means they didn’t have an abortionist who would come to the facility—for whatever reason.
Under the 6 months idea, the facility should have reopened by May of this year. It didn’t, but nothing official was said until last week when Planned Parenthood announced it would remain closed. This time, the stated reason for not reopening was they couldn’t meet the required safety protocols in the wake of the shootings last year at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Colorado Springs.
I believe this recent reason is nothing more than a smokescreen. If they really wanted to open the facility, nothing would stop them—except money. And that I believe is the real reason this abortuary will remain shuttered. Frankly, we don’t care what the reason is; we are just rejoicing that women will no longer be preyed upon at this facility, and no babies will be brutally murdered there.
Now there’s more good news on this issue. Just this week, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services released its abortion statistics from 2015. Once again, the number of Wisconsin women who had abortions went down. In fact, the number went down 3% from 5,640 in 2014 to 5,461 in 2015. We hasten to say that this is still much too high. Even this 2015 number represents the loss of just under15 babies every single day in 2015. So while we rejoice in the 3% drop, we have much work to do both in the state legislature and in the culture. But, every drop in number represents a baby saved.
Keeping Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin abortion facilities shut is helping drive that number down, I’m sure. With this Appleton facility remaining closed, Wisconsin is down to just 3 abortion facilities.
The rest of the good news on this issue is that women in crisis pregnancies are not left with no place to go for help. We are blessed in Wisconsin to have many very fine pregnancy resource centers, some with associated medical clinics, that offer women real hope and real help—for free. In Appleton, Mother and Unborn Baby Care, as well as its associated Womankind Medical Center, is readily available and eager to help women.
As we each keep praying and working, I am confident we will continue to have more good news than bad news to report on the pro-life front. To God be the glory; great things He has done.
For Wisconsin Family Council, this is Julaine Appling reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed. for lack of knowledge.”
[1] http://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/local/2015/10/27/abortion-clinic-suspending-services/74670816/
