Pro-abortion legislators in Iowa narrowly managed to kill a measure on Friday that would have stopped tax dollars from going to the abortion industry.
“[Iowa state] Senator Ken Rozenboom’s amendment to defund the abortion industry failed today on a tie vote,” Jenifer Bowen, executive director of Iowa Right to Life, said in an email. “We had bipartisan support, but needed one more vote.”
The defunding measure was part of a health and human services budget bill, which passed the Iowa House earlier this week. The state Senate removed the language to stop tax dollars from going to abortion groups like Planned Parenthood, and then passed the bill in a 27-23 vote on Friday, the Associated Press reports.
Gov. Terry Branstad supported the abortion defunding effort, but the Democrat-controlled state Senate appeared likely to reject it.
“We sincerely thank Senator Rozenboom and those who spoke up for the amendment and everyone who voted for it,” Bowen said. “We will continue to speak out on the injustice of abortion and why we MUST defund the abortion industry. We will not relent until all lives, born and unborn, are again protected from the moment of fertilization until natural death.”
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The effort to defund abortion groups comes in response to a series of undercover videos showing the Planned Parenthood abortion business selling aborted babies’ body parts. Since the undercover videos revealed shocking and potentially illegal activity at Planned Parenthood, a number of states have introduced measures to end taxpayer funding to it and other abortion groups.
Iowa RTL said it collected more than 14,000 signatures from Iowans who want to end taxpayer funding to abortion groups. It also pointed to a recent report that Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, the affiliate in Iowa and Nebraska, was caught illegally using taxpayer funds for abortions in Nebraska.
As LifeNews previously reported, a public opinion poll conducted in Iowa shows that the majority of the state’s residents support de-funding Planned Parenthood and sending government funding to legitimate health care clinics instead. The survey was commissioned by the pro-life legal group Alliance Defending Freedom and found that 69 percent of Iowans agree that taxpayers should not subsidize groups like Planned Parenthood.
