Maine Legislators Want to Spend 300K Funding Poor Women’s Abortions 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 19, 2007
Augusta, ME (LifeNews.com) — The state of Maine already gives over $1 million annually to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which does abortions in the northeastern state. But some state legislators say that’s not enough and they want the legislature to approve a bill that would spend $283,000 to directly fund poor women’s abortions.
Maine Democrat Senate President Betheda Edmonds is the main sponsor of the measure, LD 1309, which is slated for a public hearing later this spring.
The bill has the support of pro-abortion groups such as the Family Planning Association of Maine and the Maine Women’s Lobby but pro-life organizations like Maine Right to Life and the Catholic Diocese of Portland will strongly oppose the bill.
The Christian Civic League of Maine also opposes the measure and Mike Health, the group’s director, talked about his group’s position in a recent Bangor Daily News interview.
"It’s immoral for us to have abortion, period," he said, but "to think that Christian, tax-paying [Maine] citizens will be forced to pay for abortions is absolutely unconscionable, it’s beyond wrong."
Heath says the bill already has the support of legislators on both sides of the aisle as four Maine Republican legislators are co-sponsoring the bill.
Included as current co-sponsors of the abortion funding bill are: State Senator Peter Mills (R-Somerset County), State Rep. Abigail Holman (R-Fayette), State Rep. Roberta M. Muse (R-Fryeburg), and State Rep. Meredith N. Strang Burgess (R-Cumberland).
Heath says that appears to contradict a new platform of the Maine Republican Party which supports parental notification on abortion as a way to limit abortions. Tax funding of abortions would likely increase the number of abortions in the state.
Related web sites:
Maine state legislature – https://janus.state.me.us/legis
