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Wisconsin abortions decline again by 4.4% after Governor Walker’s pro-life laws

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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

Life News reports.

Excerpt:

Abortion are on the decline in Wisconsin and they are poised to drop further thanks to new pro-life laws signed by Governor Scott Walker. Abortions dropped 7.4 percent in Wisconsin in the prior report.

Last year, Walker added to his pro-life list of accomplishments today by signing bills the pro-life movement supported, including measures to stop abortion funding in Obamacare and webcam abortions.

Wisconsin Right to Life officials told LifeNews Wisconsin abortions have decreased 68% from their all-time high in 1980 and 60% since Wisconsin began requiring abortion reporting in 1987.

[…]According to an AP report, abortions declined 4.4 percent from 2011-2012:

The Department of Health Services reported Monday that there were 6,927 abortions in 2012. That is down from 7,249 in 2011 for a drop of 4.4 percent.

It marks the third year in a row that abortions have gone down. Prior to an increase between 2008 and 2009, abortions had dropped for five straight years.

The rate of women aged 15-44 who had an abortion in 2012 was 6.1 per 1,000, down from 6.3 per 1,000 the year before. That is well below the national rate of 15.1 per 1,000 as of the most recent data available from 2009.

State law requires any facility that provides abortions to report statistics to the state.

In July, Walker signed Senate Bill 206 (Sonya’s Law) into law.  This important new law requires that women seeking abortions in Wisconsin be given the opportunity to see their unborn children through ultrasound.

Just hours before Walker signed the law, the Planned Parenthood abortion business announced it would file a lawsuit seeking to stop women from seeing these ultrasounds.

[…]After Walker signed the bill, the Planned Parenthood abortion business shut down one clinic in Appleton and another facility end abortions at another center in Green Bay.

But he’s not just a social conservative, but a fiscal conservative, too.

Excerpt:

Wisconsin is living proof that elections have consequences. The last 10 years of public policy in the state proves this, providing a sharp contrast between Republicans and Democrats and highlighting the positive results of Republican leadership.

The previous Governor left Wisconsin with a $3.6 billion budget deficit and a bleak economic outlook. In fact, during Governor Jim Doyle’s last term, Wisconsin lost over 133,000 jobs, and only 10% of employers thought our state was headed in the right direction.

At the polls in 2010, Wisconsinites elected Scott Walker and Republican majorities in the Assembly and Senate. Since taking office, Republicans have turned things around. Unlike the Democrats, who in 2009 were debating over $3 billion in tax hikes, State Republicans have been cutting taxes and eliminating regulations to foster a pro-growth environment in Wisconsin. In fact, the current budget provides nearly $1 billion in tax relief for hard-working middle class families.

In a stunning reversal of Doyle-era job loss, Wisconsin created over 14,000 jobs in June alone. The budget is balanced, and 94% of employers say our state is headed in the right direction. Furthermore, a leading economic indicator from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia just ranked Wisconsin second in the nation in jobs outlook for the next six months.

What if he were to run in 2016? Well, Scott Walker is a favorite of social conservatives, but remember that this is the same Scott Walker who took on the labor unions to limit collective bargaining and he won. His law, which has produced an economic boom in Wisconsin, is still standing. He’s showing leadership on social AND fiscal issues. It’s not just talk, it’s action. I think he should be considered in 2016, along with governors Bobby Jindal (LA), Rick Perry (TX), John Kasich (OH), and Mike Pence (IN).

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Obama’s budget proposal would increase taxpayer funding of abortion

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The Heritage Foundation explains.

Excerpt:

President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2014 budget released yesterday persists in entangling taxpayer dollars in the abortion industry.

Obama’s budget includes $327 million for Title X family planning programs, a more than $30 million increase over last year’s request. Title X is one of a number of sources of government funding to Planned Parenthood, which performs roughly one out of every four abortions in the United States and was recently accused of tacitly supporting infanticide.

In 2011 alone, Planned Parenthood received over $542 million in total taxpayer funding while performing a record 333,964 abortions. According to analysis by the Susan B. Anthony List, Planned Parenthood has performed almost 1 million abortions in the past three reporting years alone.

Even though the organization boasts the title of the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood has ridden the waves of taxpayer funding to millions of dollars in annual surpluses. During its last reporting year, like many before it, Planned Parenthood saw a very comfortable income, reporting excess revenues exceeding $87 million and net assets of more than $1.2 billion.

How does Planned Parenthood feel about infanticide? Let’s see:

If the organization’s single-minded provision of abortion services isn’t enough to question the continual stream of federal tax dollars, recent disturbing admissions by a local Florida Planned Parenthood affiliate should at least raise scrutiny of the organization’s federal funding.

A few weeks ago, a local Planned Parenthood representative testified against a Florida bill that would require abortion doctors to provide emergency care for infants born after a failed abortion attempt. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion,” asked one Florida legislator during the hearing, “what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

Instead of expressing the need to provide potentially life-saving medical care to the child, Planned Parenthood official Alisa LaPolt Snow simply responded, “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”

The Obama Administration also continues to export taxpayer funding of abortion, requesting $37 million for the United Nations Family Population Fund (UNFPA). Despite continued assertions that UNFPA has been involved in China’s coercive one-child policy, the U.S. government persists in sending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to an organization complicit in forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.

Previously, I wrote about how Obama voted for infanticide several times and he opposed the ban on partial birth abortions.

Excerpt:

BAIPA [The Born Alive Infant Protection Act] (both the federal and Illinois state versions) on the other hand, was introduced to insure that babies who survive attempted abortions are provided the same medical care and sustenance as any other infant born alive. BAIPA was introduced after evidence was presented that babies born alive after unsuccessful abortions were simply discarded in utility closets without food, care, or medical treatment until they died.

As both Andy and I pointed out last night (and numerous times before), state senator Obama fought against the Illinois version of BAIPA that was identical in all material respects to the federal version. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama claimed that he voted against the Illinois BAIPA because it failed to contain a “neutrality clause” making it clear that the bill did not affect the right to an abortion. This is false. Documents obtained by National Right to Life show that the Illinois BAIPA did, in fact, contain a neutrality clause identical to the federal version.

As noted yesterday, not one U.S. senator voted against  BAIPA. Even NARAL didn’t oppose it. At the time of the vote, CNN reported that NARAL’s spokesman said the following:

We, in fact, did not oppose the bill. There is a clear legal difference between a fetus in utero versus a child that’s born.And when a child is born, they deserve every protection that the country can provide. (Emphasis added).

The logical import of Obama’s vote against BAIPA is that he disagrees, i.e., once a baby has been targeted for abortion it thereafter has no inherent right to the food, comfort, and medical care provided to other babies born alive. Indeed, during Illinois state senate deliberations on BAIPA, Obama stated that one of his objections was that the bill was “designed toburden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.” Apparently, once the decision to abort has been made, a child is doomed even if born alive.

When it comes to abortion, there is no one more radical than Barack Obama.

News

Let the grown-ups lead: Paul Ryan describes his proposal to balance the budget

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Paul Ryan's Balanced Budget Proposal
Paul Ryan’s Balanced Budget Proposal

In the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

America’s national debt is over $16 trillion. Yet Washington can’t figure out how to cut $85 billion—or just 2% of the federal budget—without resorting to arbitrary, across-the-board cuts. Clearly, the budget process is broken. In four of the past five years, the president has missed his budget deadline. Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget in over 1,400 days. By refusing to tackle the drivers of the nation’s debt—or simply to write a budget—Washington lurches from crisis to crisis.

House Republicans have a plan to change course. On Tuesday, we’re introducing a budget that balances in 10 years—without raising taxes. How do we do it? We stop spending money the government doesn’t have. Historically, Americans have paid a little less than one-fifth of their income in taxes to the federal government each year. But the government has spent more.

So our budget matches spending with income. Under our proposal, the government spends no more than it collects in revenue—or 19.1% of gross domestic product each year. As a result, we’ll spend $4.6 trillion less over the next decade.

Our opponents will shout austerity, but let’s put this in perspective. On the current path, we’ll spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we’ll spend $41 trillion. On the current path, spending will increase by 5% each year. Under our proposal, it will increase by 3.4%. Because the U.S. economy will grow faster than spending, the budget will balance by 2023, and debt held by the public will drop to just over half the size of the economy.

Yet the most important question isn’t how we balance the budget. It’s why. A budget is a means to an end, and the end isn’t a neat and tidy spreadsheet. It’s the well-being of all Americans. By giving families stability and protecting them from tax hikes, our budget will promote a healthier economy and help create jobs. Most important, our budget will reignite the American Dream, the idea that anyone can make it in this country.

The truth is, the nation’s debt is a sign of overreach. Government is trying to do too much, and when government does too much, it doesn’t do anything well. So a balanced budget is a reasonable goal, because it returns government to its proper limits and focus. By curbing government’s overreach, our budget will give families the space they need to thrive.

Since Obama was elected, he’s added over $5.5 trillion to the national debt. This is not sustainable. We cannot continue to pass on enormous levels of debt to our children so that 30-year-old students can have free condoms bought for them. It is immoral to spend trillions of dollars and then pass the bill to the next generation. Democrats like to talk about helping the children, but really they just want to force them to pay for their wasteful spending. It’s got to stop.