When you call, be prepared to stand your ground. Legislators and their staff often resort to all kinds of tactics to confuse, distort, and even to offend.
The issue is simple:
1. Amendment 36 would have prohibited the state from spending even a cent to pay Planned Parenthood’s abortion invoices.
2. Planned Parenthood endorsed abortion advocate CJ McCormick moved to table (kill) Amendment 36.
3. These Republican Representatives voted with Planned Parenthood abortion advocates to table (kill) the only budget amendment that would have saved hundreds of babies’ lives.
They’ll tell you that ‘tabling’ an amendment simply sets it aside. In a sense, that’s true, but bringing the amendment back up for debate requires a vote that few, if any will support. Generally, once an amendment is tabled, it’s impossible to bring it ‘off the table.’
They may also tell you that the budget already has a section that prohibits Medicaid funds from being spent on abortions. That is true. However, 20(+) years of abortion funding history makes it clear that what they are describing is unenforceable.
Should politicians mention the Medicaid funding section in the budget, kindly ask them how effective that has been in the past, and how that might prevent the State from paying abortion invoices from any other part of the budget.