Minnesota, MN (LifeNews.com) -- Minnesota taxpayers have been forced to pay for more abortions than ever before, according to new figures from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. State residents were required to pay $1.6 million for more than 3,900 abortions in 2006.

In addition, Minnesota residents paid for medical care for women who suffered from botched legal abortions.

“There is no end in sight for taxpayer funded abortions in Minnesota,” Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life director Scott Fischbach told LifeNews.com.

“Just last month pro-lifers sought to ban taxpayer funding of needless sex-selection abortions and gruesome saline abortions, but the legislature’s pro-abortion leaders have given the abortion industry a blank check to perform as many abortions on women as it pleases, and the results are frightening," he explained.

Taxpayer-funded abortions rose over the prior year to a total of 3,937.

They now account for 28 percent of all abortions performed in Minnesota, due to the Minnesota Supreme Court’s 1995 Doe v. Gomez decision.

Taxpayers were billed $1,652,978 for those abortions -- up a staggering 17 percent over 2005. That includes $13,000 paid for taking care of the medical needs of women who suffered from failed abortions.

MCCL has lobbied lawmakers to ban taxpayer funding of abortions.

The group also tried to get state legislators to ban sex-selection abortions, but legislative leaders stripped the measure out of the bill in Conference Committee.

“The current leadership of the Legislature has never heard of an abortion that they didn't support, or want Minnesota taxpayers to have to pay for,” Fischbach said. “This Legislature is using taxpayer dollars to literally abort the future of our state, one innocent life at a time. It is a monumental tragedy.”

A previous report form the state health department, in July 2007, showed abortions in Minnesota increased by five percent in 2006 and that abortions on minor girls rose 16 percent.

Planned Parenthood is responsible for nearly all of these increases.

In 2006, abortions increased by 700, and Planned Parenthood increased its number by 645 (a 21 percent increase). Taxpayer funded abortions increased by 60, and Planned Parenthood boosted its taxpayer funded abortion business by 102 (a 17 percent increase).

Planned Parenthood increased its revenues from taxpayer funded abortions by a whopping 37 percent from 2005 to 2006 to a total of $235,000.

“Both of these troubling state reports point to Planned Parenthood’s predatory strategy of targeting vulnerable low-income women and teens to grow its abortion business,” Fischbach concluded. “Their money is rolling in at record levels while unborn babies are killed and women are victimized.”

Related web sites:
Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life - http://www.mccl.org