Wisconsin legislature defunds Planned Parenthood, passes $8 million in cuts

On Thursday, the Wisconsin State Assembly voted to pass legislation to cut approximately $4.5 million in inflated reimbursement from Planned Parenthood in the state.

AB 311 would reduce the funding by permitting the abortion giant to only bill Medicaid for drugs’ actual acquisition costs and a dispensing fee.

The bill, which has also passed the State Senate, is expected to be signed into law by Governor Scott Walker, as it recently passed legislation redirecting $3.5 million in family planning funds away from Planned Parenthood toward women’s health providers not involved with abortion.

Supporters of the defunding measures argued that in addition to the impropriety of taxpayer dollars supporting abortion providers, subsidizing Planned Parenthood was unnecessary for women’s health.

“By the admission of Planned Parenthood’s President and CEO Teresa Huyck in her deposition for Planned Parenthood v. Van Hollen, in 2012 alone Planned Parenthood performed about 4,000 abortions, approximately 60% of all Wisconsin abortions in that year,” Wisconsin Right to Life’s Executive Director Heather Weininger explained, “and the ‘vast majority’ of the services in the Appleton North and Milwaukee-Jackson centers are abortion.”

“Women’s birth control? I’m for women’s birth control. I think probably most everybody else here is, too,” Republican Senator Duey Stroebel added. “I support women’s health care. I think everybody else here does. What we don’t support is a taxpayer subsidy for a private abortion provider. That’s what this bill is about.”