2015 | Week of August 10 – #1110

God is amazing. I was told earlier this year by a pretty high-ranking elected official that we pro-lifers were going to get only one pro-life bill this two-year session. So we’d better get together on what one we wanted.

I can remember thinking: Wow…so what good are strong majorities? I decided to not go ballistic but to quietly wait and see—and I’m so glad I did because God very definitely had a different plan.

For a while it did indeed appear that the one pro-life bill we’d get this session was the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection bill that Governor Walker signed into law late last month. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good bill; and we strongly supported 95% of it.

All pro-life energies were focused on this single bill—until Center for Medical Progress came out with a video, and then another video, and another, and another—all exposing Planned Parenthood’s horrible business of trafficking in the body parts of the babies they gruesomely aborted.

Suddenly, with social media and even much of the mainstream media exploding with this news, it became hard for state and national elected officials to ignore this story.

Fortunately, we still have heroes among our midst—and once again State Representative André Jacque, a Republican from De Pere, has risen up to lead the charge against Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

Rep. Jacque, an ardent pro-life champion, has introduced three bills that should very definitely pass in both our Assembly and Senate.  The first bill, Assembly Bill 305, co-authored by Rep. Joel Kleefisch, a Republican from Oconomowoc and Senator Duey Strobel, a Republican from Saukville, bans the sale or use of and experimentation on the body parts, including a cell, tissue, organ or other body part, of an aborted baby.

Joining Representatives Jacque and Kleefisch are 40 of their Assembly colleagues and 10 state senators. All co-sponsors are Republicans. That’s a pretty good showing, but I can’t help wondering why the other 21 Republican Assembly representatives and the other 9 Republican Senators aren’t on this very reasonable, very timely bill.

This bill is moving quickly in the legislature with a public hearing scheduled for early this week. I think it will receive a vote early this fall in the Assembly.

The other two bills that Rep. Jacque has introduced would go a long ways to defund Wisconsin’s leading abortion provider. For years, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has been overbilling the state for Medicaid reimbursements for drugs it acquires quite cheaply under the allowable drug-reimbursement program.  This bill will require Planned Parenthood and other so-called “family-planning” organizations to bill the actual acquisition cost and a reasonable dispensing fee. Rep. Jacque estimates that this bill would result in a $4.5 million reduction in taxpayer subsidy for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and other guilty family-planning organizations.

Rep. Jacque’s third bill would redirect federal Title X dollars in our state. These monies are provided to help subsidize public health and family-planning services for low-income individuals. Right now in Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is the only organization receiving this more than $3 million each year. This bill would send the money to the state’s Department of Health Services which in turn would distribute the money to other qualified programs and providers, including Wisconsin Well Woman—all programs that don’t provide abortions, refer for abortions, or have affiliates that provide or refer for abortions.

These last two bills have not yet been formally introduced but should be very soon.

This past weekend, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos published an op ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in which he basically said all three bills would get a vote in the State Assembly. That’s good news and shows Speaker Vos understands the tsunami that has hit all over the country on this Planned Parenthood issue. As for me, I’m reminded anew that God really is in control. Truly, the hearts of kings are in His hand and our Great God turns those hearts however and whenever He wants to turn them. How reassuring is that!

This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”