Governor Blunt Outlines 2006 Legislative Priorities, Withholds Moneys for Alternatives to Abortion Program

January 16, 2006, JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Governor Matt Blunt outlined his 2006 legislative priorities during his State of the State address on January 11, 2006. Three of the governor’s priorities relate to stemming the tide of abortion: prohibiting abortion providers from teaching in or providing sex education material to public schools, providing tax credits to support contributions to pregnancy resource centers and conscience protection for pharmacists.

Currently, many school districts around the state contract with Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to provide sex education materials in their schools. Governor Blunt proposes legislation that will prohibit any public elementary or secondary school from allowing abortion providers to present sex education programs or sex education materials to students.

Governor Blunt also proposed a tax credit for individuals and businesses that make donations to pregnancy resource and crisis pregnancy centers. These centers are designed to support pregnant women by offering support and encouraging childbirth rather than abortion. The governor’s proposal would allow an income tax credit for fifty percent of the donations, limits total credits to $50,000 per individual or business and limits the maximum amount of credits that can be issued in one year at $2 million.

Governor Blunt proposes to increase the total budgeting for alternatives to abortion to $1.5 million dollars. Alternatives to abortion funding is currently $1.3 million dollars and is comprised of $760,000 from federal funds and $570,000 from state funds. However the Department of Health and Senior Services refuses to release the $760,000 in federal funds to the Alternatives to Abortion program, instead wanting to expend these funds for other programs.

The Alternatives to Abortion program assists women to maintain their pregnancy by providing them with support services, including counseling, and assistance with health, housing and transportation difficulties. The program assists primarily women who make an annual income of less than $9,000, who are at risk of obtaining an abortion without support for their pregnancy.

The Department of Health contracts with a coalition of faith-based providers, including Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Catholic Services for Children and Youth of St. Louis, Lutheran Family and Children Services, and the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home to provide these services.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has released reports showing that the program had a 99.7% success rate serving the 648 women who participated in the program during fiscal year 2002.

“The Alternatives to Abortion program is very important to Missouri as a pro-life state,” said Deacon Larry Weber, Executive Director of the Missouri Catholic Conference. “Governor Blunt identified alternatives to abortion as a legislative and budgeting priority. He needs to ensure that all the funds set aside for the Alternatives to Abortion program are used for that purpose and not other programs.”

Missouri law currently provides conscience protection for certain medical professionals with respect to abortions. However, pharmacies have recently taken action against pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for RU-486 or the so-called morning after pill. Illinois requires all

pharmacies that have birth control to fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Two pharmacists lost their jobs and three pharmacists were suspended by Walgreens after refusing to fill prescriptions for RU-486. Governor Blunt proposes legislation that would prohibit pharmacies from requiring any employee to dispense or participate in any service involving a particular drug or device that they have a good faith belief is used for abortions. The legislation would also protect pharmaceutical professionals from civil or criminal liability and from actions against their professional license if they invoke their conscience rights protections.

“We are pleased that Governor Blunt is supporting these issues that are of concern to Missouri Catholics but we hope that he ensures that all funds budgeted for alternatives to abortion are expended,” said Deacon Weber. “Budgeting these funds without later allowing them to be expended is meaningless. We might have expected this from Governors Carnahan or Holden, but we never expected this from an avowed opponent of abortion.”