Doctors at the taxpayer-funded University of Wisconsin would no longer be allowed to abort unborn babies as part of their university jobs if a new bill passes the state legislature.
The bill passed the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Health and Human Services on Thursday in a 3-2 party-line vote, The Cap Times reports.
The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine is taxpayer funded, and it currently trains ob-gyn students to abort unborn babies. According to the report, the medical school has an agreement with the abortion chain Planned Parenthood to provide physicians to “direct, coordinate and provide” abortions and other procedures. The agreement has been in place for nearly a decade.
“[The bill] is to protect that majority of taxpayers … to protect them from subsidizing the devastating industry to kill babies at Planned Parenthood,” said committee chair state Sen. Leah Vukmir during the hearing. “We really cannot stand for unborn babies being killed, and even worse, on the state’s dime.”
State Rep. Andre Jacque, co-author of the bill, said it would prohibit doctors from doing or assisting in abortions and providing abortion training at abortion facilities, the AP reports. The bill includes an exception for hospitals.
Leaders of the medical school oppose the measure, claiming the school’s accreditation status could be in jeopardy if the bill passes, the report states.
Here’s more from the report:
Under the current agreement, Planned Parenthood purchases the physicians’ time at a rate of $150 per hour, for an estimated 16 to 20 hours per week.
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The arrangement allows UW to meet its accreditation requirements under the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, by allowing ob-gyn residents to participate in a family planning rotation. Students with religious or moral objections are not required to participate in the rotation, UW School of Medicine and Public Health Dean Robert Golden said during a public hearing last week.
State Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and Jacque, R-De Pere, who wrote the bill, said the purpose is to make sure the University of Wisconsin is abiding by state law, which prohibits state and federal tax dollars from covering elective abortions.
Jacque told the local news that the bill “only applies to employees acting within the scope of their state employment, not on their own time.”
Polls indicate a strong majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars to subsidize abortions.
In October 2016, a Politico/Harvard University poll found that just 36 percent of likely voters supported taxpayer funding for abortions, while 58 percent opposed it. These findings are consistent with previous polls from various groups.
Planned Parenthood also is the top abortion business in the United States, aborting more than 300,000 unborn babies annually, according to its annual reports.
