THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
To Lighthouse Trails: What is “The Voice” translation of the Bible and what do you think of it? Our Comments: Our answer (from a 2007 LT article): According to an article in Christian Today, “New Bible Project for Young Generation Launched”, Thomas Nelson’s 2006 “Bible” project called The Voice is going full speed ahead. The project, announced by TN last spring, is a “re-telling of the Bible that consists of creative voices from historians to poets, storytellers to songwriters,” and is for young people who are “searching for new ways to explore the Bible, or who are seeking to read it for the first time.” The project will be a combination of books, music CDs, artwork and an interactive website. With the largest Christian publisher backing the project, there is little doubt that The Voice will reach countless young people and have a significant impact in many lives. Unfortunately, the project turns out to be an emerging church creation, thus the foundation of it is marred from the beginning. Because mysticism, New Age ideology, and a return to Rome, are the building blocks of the emerging church, The Voice is going to be a spiritually dangerous conduit for adherents. Some of the emergent leaders involved in the project are Chris Seay (project founder), Brian McLaren, Lauren Winner, Leonard Sweet, and Blue Like Jazzauthor, Donald Miller. In last year’s press release by Thomas Nelson, Erwin McManus was also listed. This month’s new release (the third book in the project) is called The Voice of Matthew, written by emergent/contemplative Lauren Winner (Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath). Chris Seay, the founder of The Voice, is pastor of Ecclesia Church in Houston, Texas. A mission statement on the website illustrates the theology of the emerging church:
We believe that the Gospel impacts every area of a person’s life and culture. We reject unfounded categories that divide the world into uniquely sacred or purely secular. God is redeeming all of creation through Jesus. We believe that the church exists for the world and not for herself – she is to introduce and usher in the Kingdom of God into every part of this world.
Saying that all of creation (e.g., all humanity) is redeemed is in direct opposition of the teachings of Jesus who said “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:14). And the belief that the church will usher in the Kingdom of God as opposed to Jesus Christ ushering it in with his literal return to the earth is indicative of the contemplative/emerging mindset. (It is also classic dominionism.) The contemplative affinities of the contributors of The Voice will assure that mysticism will be an integral part of this project. This new version of the Bible has the potential to lead thousands, and possibly millions, of young people away from the words of Jesus Christ who said:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. (John 10: 1-4)
We contend that The Voice is not the voice of the Good Shepherd, nor is it the Word of God that says:
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” (I John 5:12-13)
Thomas Nelson Publishers and Ecclesia Bible Foundation has recently published “The Voice” Bible Translation. According to the publisher’s website, “The Voice™ is a faithful dynamic equivalent translation that reads like a story with all the truth and wisdom of God’s Word.”
The emphasis of The Voice is the spoken word, and the translation is designed for ease of public and dramatic reading. Because it is so easy to read, so poetic, so beautiful to the ear, I have no doubt that this translation will soon come to a pulpit or youth group near you. The publisher says that, “The Voice recaptures the passion, grit, humor, and beauty that is often lost in the translation process.” Sadly, the original words and their meaning was also lost in the translation process.
Ease on the ear is not the priority purpose of the Word of God, and I believe The Voice has made grave errors of translation and should be rejected outright. Though they claim to have a translation that is “painstakingly true” to the original words, it is painstakingly obvious that the original meaning of the words was not priority in this “translation.”
Consider John 14:3, for example. This verse, found in one of the most beloved passages of the Bible, has Jesus’ words that “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself.” The Greek words are common and easily translate to English. In fact, the word for “I will come” is used over 600 times in the New Testament, and its meaning is unquestioned. Yet the “painstakingly true” translation in The Voice is, “I will be there to greet you personally and welcome you home, where we will be together.” The Voice has totally dropped the return in favor of our arrival. Why? I can only guess it is because the “translators” have an allergy to the Rapture and so they wanted to cleanse this passage of any rapture potential.
The Voice reads like a New Age book. The familiar “I am the way, the truth, and the life” of John 14:6 is rendered, “I am the path, the truth, and the energy of life.” This and hundreds of other verses simply ooze with New Age terminology.
This so-called translation is a paraphrase with a theological agenda. It is New Age / Emergent, promotes Liberation Theology’s social justice, and disregards the clear meaning of words to advance their theological agenda. In the end, it is so mangled that I would not call it a Bible.
To watch my online Bible class on The Voice Bible review, use the player below.
The allocution of Doreen Hendrickson of Michigan, detailing the crimes against her First and Fifth Amendment rights involved in the charges against her and in her subsequent trials, read for the camera by Katie Hendrickson.
WOMAN JAILED FOR REFUSING FEDERAL ORDER TO COMMIT PERJURY
When a federal court and the federal government ordered Doreen Hendrickson to sign a form under penalty of perjury that she believed to be inaccurate, the mother of two initially refused to comply.
Eventually, she obeyed but noted that the sworn statement was being made under duress.
Now, because of that decision, she is sitting behind bars for “contempt of court.”
A federal appeal is being considered in what sources called an “unprecedented” case, with arguments from both sides presented last month.
The case’s has broad implications for free speech and due process.
Hendrickson’s saga officially began in 2006, when the Internal Revenue Service claimed that refunds it had issued to her years earlier were mistakes, according to the family and official documents reviewed by WND.
In 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice went much further, asking a federal court to sign an order purporting to force Hendrickson to repudiate her previous tax returns and sign new ones.
However, she was never even accused by the government of tax evasion or filing false returns, much less convicted.
The DOJ, however, wanted her to replace her original returns – signed under penalty of perjury – with new documents in which the content would be dictated by the IRS, also signed under penalty of perjury. They flew in prosecutor Melissa Siskind from Washington to pursue the case.
Hendrickson believed the information dictated by the IRS was incorrect, so she could not sign it without an explanatory note pointing out that it was made under duress, she explained.
Indeed, no U.S. government official was willing to swear under penalty of perjury that he believed what the government wanted Hendrickson to swear she believed.
Because the new return would also have to be signed under penalty of perjury, had Hendrickson complied without indicating the coercion, she would have essentially admitted to perjuring herself on the original return.
The dispute has observers and legal experts baffled.
“I can’t say in 30 year[s] of practicing law that I’ve ever seen anything like this,” Hendrickson’s appellate attorney, Mark Cedrone, told WND over the phone.
The case
In short, the federal government put Hendrickson in a Catch 22 situation and appears to have violated constitutional protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights, including the First and Fifth amendments.
Fundamental free speech rights and due process are at issue in the case.
In what observers and attorneys believe is unprecedented in American history, federal prosecutors sought to compel a person not only to speak, but to affirm under penalty of perjury the truthfulness of something the person did not believe to be true, all to advance the government’s desired narrative in court.
The Justice Department did not respond to repeated requests by phone and email for information from WND.
Husband Pete Hendrickson, however, told WND the government was trying to coerce his wife into committing perjury, using threats, in a manner that would financially benefit the government.
“Further, Doreen was ordered to conceal the fact that the false testimony was coerced,” he said. “She was ordered to render it in such a fashion that anyone seeing it would conclude that the testimony was entirely Doreen’s freely made of her own accord and representing what she really believes [to be] true.”
In what her husband called “ironic” and “chilling,” the indictment against his wife for refusing to say what the DOJ wanted her to say came at almost the same time as the Supreme Court ruled yet again that the First Amendment “prevents the government from telling people what they must say.”
In the summer of 2013, federal agents took her to a federal facility in downtown Detroit on an indictment of “contempt of court” for refusing to go along with the demand.
“I don’t want my kids to grow up in a world where they’re afraid to say what’s true, because the government wants them to say something different,” Doreen Hendrickson says in a video posted online. “That isn’t any way to live.”
When she still refused to comply with the court order instructing her to sign the declaration without reservations noting the coercion, she was convicted of “contempt of court” and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
She could go back for more time if she does not comply with what the Hendricksons contend are illegal orders upon release late this year.
The first trial ended in a hung jury after Hendrickson was allowed to read Supreme Court rulings about speech rights. But in the second, she was prevented from doing so, and the government was successful in securing a conviction.
In the trials, the judge instructed the jury, “properly” according to the federal government’s appellate brief, that the legality of ordering Hendrickson to sign something she did not believe to be true was not at issue.
Pete Hendrickson, outraged, blasted the “co-conspiring judge” and the controversial instructions given to the jury, which are an important element of the appeal.
“This is utterly offensive to the constitutional protections of speech and conscience, and of due process, which provides that anyone in a legal contest with another party – even when that other party is the United States [government] – is entitled to make their own claims, to argue their own facts, and is under no circumstances obliged to endorse the views of their opponent,” he said.
“The assault on Doreen Hendrickson is an assault on every American,” Pete Hendrickson told WND. “What’s being done to this good woman undermines the very rule of law which is the only thing keeping us from arbitrary and despotic government.
“No one can be told what to say by the government,” he continued, “and especially not what to say she believes true.”
The First Amendment “says this in as plain a way as it can be said,” Pete Hendrickson said, adding that “the amendment means what it says,” as “has been endlessly stated by the U.S. Supreme Court and all other courts of every kind throughout the country and throughout our history.”
“This is perhaps the most well-settled point in American legal history,” he added, referring to speech rights.
In her statement before sentencing denouncing the “illegal” schemes of the government and the court, Doreen Hendrickson lashed out at the prosecutor for her “lies” and lambasted the “criminal” process used to secure her conviction.
“No one, not even the government, gets to preemptively evade the contest or control its outcome by taking, or being given, control of what its opponents say – even if it really thinks what is being said or might be said is wrong,” she told the court. “Both sides must rely on the strength of their own arguments to overcome those of their opponent, and are prohibited from using strong-arm tactics against each other. In fact, efforts to secure favorable testimony in such a contest by threats or coercion are crimes.”
Hendrickson also noted that she expected to prevail upon appeal and outlined the reasons why.
A book on the ‘witch trial’
Observers who witnessed the trial also expressed outrage over what they saw and contend that Hendrickson was railroaded in a sham proceeding that was rigged from the start.
Brian Wright, a longtime liberty activist who attended the trial, was so moved by the “travesty” he observed in the trial that he decided to write a book, “The Motor City Witchcraft Trial(s),” outlining alleged abuses behind the case.
“I knew from day one – from the blatant, self-righteous hostility of the judge, from her constant badgering of Doreen, from the assignment of an incompetent legal aide to supposedly help Doreen with her case, from the manner of the prosecution’s presentation of their ‘case’, from instructions to the jury, from the open collaboration of the judge with the prosecution, and later from obvious judicial tampering with the jury – that the fix was in,” Wright told WND.
“This was not a court of law, but a tribunal of Soviet-style justice: guilty regardless of anything,” he added.
He said the case was not a tax case but rather a case of whether government and the courts can compel a person to commit perjury and attest to something she or he believes is false, “such as whether she’s a witch.”
The abuses were so serious, Wright continued, that there should have been a grand jury investigation to “indict all these government officials for the crime of suborning perjury.”
The order given to Hendrickson to “perjure” herself was clearly unlawful, Wright argued. However, he recalled the judge in the case demanding, including to the jury in the instructions, that the most crucial issue not be discussed.
“Clearly, justice requires that Doreen be released, her record expunged and that she receive restitution for the crime of false imprisonment,” the author and activist said.
He also called for all officials involved in the “crime of suborning Doreen’s perjury” to be indicted, convicted and imprisoned for their “heinous act of violence.”
The reason? Tax book, critics say
The reason the federal government was so adamant in pursuing Doreen Hendrickson, according to sources who spoke with WND, centers on a book written by Pete Hendrickson called “Cracking the Code.”
The book claims it can show readers how to legally avoid paying income taxes in some cases.
WND has not reviewed the book nor its arguments. But in court documents seen by WND, including the government’s appellate brief, the federal government says it rejects the “frivolous” “theory.”
Still, for reasons that remain unclear and officially unexplained, Doreen Hendrickson was never charged with filing a false return, tax evasion, lying on her tax filings or anything similar.
Instead, the only charge was not obeying a court order to sign the revised form with content dictated by the IRS.
The Hendricksons, along with many of their supporters, contend that the government went after Doreen Hendrickson primarily in a ham-handed effort to discredit the claims in the book, retaliate against those making the claims and deter future cases based on those arguments.
“This entire affair is an effort to discredit my book,” said Pete Hendrickson, adding that many Americans had successfully used the arguments he advances and posted the evidence of success online.
The federal government has sought to stop Pete Hendrickson, unsuccessfully so far, in court.
In her statements to the court prior to sentencing, Doreen Hendrickson chastised the judge and prosecutors, saying their real agenda was to “chill” the free speech of Americans.
“Everyone in this room knows the government’s call to [U.S. District Judge] Nancy Edmunds to issue her orders to me was wrong and lawless – as are the orders themselves – and that the pretense of a legitimate government interest in chilling the free expression of other Americans was even more broadly and darkly criminal,” Doreen Hendrickson said. “It does not speak well of Nancy Edmunds that she didn’t refer [government agent] Mr. Metcalfe for prosecution upon being presented with his demand and its revealing justifications.”
Blasting the government’s argument that she be sentenced harshly as a “deterrent” to others as “demented, un-American and Constitution-defying,” the Doreen Hendrickson said it could not be a deterrent to “resisting government-requested orders from a court dictating what they must say they believe to be true and correct.”
“No such orders have ever been issued to anyone in American history before this was done to my husband and me, and none have never been issued since,” she continued, noting that that was not surprising, considering that such orders are “illegal.”
“Therefore, what the government must mean is to deter other Americans from testifying freely and honestly on their own tax forms, or anywhere else they are asked or expected to say what they believe to be true and correct, or have a need to make claims on their own behalf or assert and defend their interests in a legal contest,” she continued. “Thus, the government’s call for a harsh sentence is a call upon this court to use a sentence upon me to commit a crime against the speech, conscience and due process rights of other Americans – indeed, all Americans.”
A family devastated, seeking justice
For Katie Hendrickson, Doreen Hendrickson’s 24-year-old daughter, the whole experience was traumatic and shocking.
“I’ve seen corruption in government through many lenses, professional and personal alike,” she told WND. “At my jobs, I saw it more from a distance, it being an ethereal thing that went bump in the night, with no real form or head, just a mammoth to battle. In the government’s various battles with my parents, however, I’ve seen the corruption up close and personal, in but a few of its many forms and bodies, face-to-face. I’ve seen what weapons the status quo will use to defend itself against all attacks, even if those attacks come by way of truths revealed.”
Katie said it was hard to face the reality that “our” government is willing to “lie and cheat” to protect its own interests, even at the expense of law-abiding citizens.
It is especially difficult to see the dark times Americans are living in for “a relatively idealistic person like me,” she continued.
“My mother is in prison for refusing to lie in order to allow the government to cheat,” she said.
But the suffering goes far beyond just what has happened to Doreen Hendrickson, Katie said, noting the imprisonment has “worn on all of us.”
“People have a tendency to think that someone being imprisoned affects the prisoner most of all, but I would counter that the punishment, while different, is equal,” she said. “You see, the prisoner is kept confined and monitored, and often mistreated, and of course, that’s painful for them. But the family left behind, waiting for them to come home, suffers through constant reminders that things are not what they should be, that something is wrong.”
When asked what she hopes will come out of the ordeal, her answer was simple.
“Honestly, I hope for justice,” she said.
“I want the American people to be made aware of what their money has supported, and for them to realize how wrong it is, and for them to act on that realization and take a stand against the government’s stubborn protection of its own assets, no matter the cost,” Katie continued. “What’s been done to my family, wrongful imprisonment for refusing to support corruption, is an outrage. I want simply for those responsible to be held accountable and tried for any crimes they’ve committed in pursuit of this end, and for justice to be carried out accordingly.”
“That’s all I want: justice,” she concluded.
Appeal process
The Hendrickson case is currently in the appeals process, with arguments having been heard last month.
The defense argued, among other points, that the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury concerning critical issues.
Also at issue is Doreen Hendrickson’s First Amendment right to say what she believes, the appellate brief contends.
Finally, the manner in which the case was charged and prosecuted was defective, according to the defense.
Love him or hate him, Dinesh D’Souza is already an American legend, and you can get his bestselling films and books direct from WND!
“Today Doreen Hendrickson sits in a federal prison for having the temerity to disagree with the government and expressing her disagreement,” Doreen Hendrickson’s attorney for the appeals process, Cedrone, told WND.
“As required under the court order for which she stands convicted of violating, on two occasions, Mrs. Hendrickson submitted amended tax returns,” he explained. “In doing so, she reported as income earnings that she truly believes are not properly subject to tax. Since tax returns require one to affirm her subjective belief of the accuracy of the recorded information, Mrs. Hendrickson qualified her filings by stating her disagreement with the compelled characterization of certain items as income.
“No one disputes that Mrs. Hendrickson believe[s] what she claims to believe,” Cedrone added. “Instead, our constitutional government has unilaterally decided that her good efforts to comply with a court order are simply not good enough because she expressed her sincerely held view that the items she was required to declare as income are not income.
“This represents a shameful abuse of public authority,” the attorney added.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/woman-jailed-for-refusing-federal-order-to-commit-perjury/#sTbjQWkZZj7EF3k2.99
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes
FRANKFORT, Ky. — The newly-elected Republican governor of Kentucky has filed a lawsuit against the abortion giant Planned Parenthood for performing abortions at a new facility in Louisville without a license.
Gov. Matt Bevin announced the lawsuit against Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. (PPINK) on Thursday, as his administration states that the Louisville location performed 23 unlicensed abortions between December and January.
Planned Parenthood has admitted that the abortions were indeed performed unlicensed, but said that the previous governor’s administration, Democrat Steve Beshear, had told them that they needed to have an unannounced inspection before they could obtain the license. The organization said that they concluded that in order to be inspected, the business would have to be open and operational.
“I don’t know how the Bevin administration proposes to resolve this apparent inconsistency in the law that you have to have an unannounced inspection before you can have a license,” attorney Thomas Clay told local television station WDRB.
Bevin’s administration noted that Planned Parenthood did submit an application for a license in November, but also provided what it called “sham” hospital and ambulance transfer agreements. The transfer agreements are required in order to be licensed, in addition to obtaining an inspection.
This placed “patients at extreme risk to their health, safety, and lives had an emergency occurred,” Bevin’s office said.
The lawsuit also accuses Beshear’s Inspector General, Maryellen Mynear, of telling Planned Parenthood officials that it was permissible to operate without a license the day before she and the rest of the previous administration left office. Bevin says that there is no such allowance in the law and that Mynear had no authority to suggest otherwise.
Planned Parenthood could now be fined over $600,000 for violating the law if found responsible of wrongdoing in court.
Bevin said in his statement that he personally opposes abortion, but since the law allows it, he feels he has to abide by state law and permit facilities to be licensed regardless of his belief that abortion is murder.
“Although I am an unapologetically pro-life individual, I recognize and accept that there are some laws on the books that I do not necessarily agree with,” he stated. “[M]y job is to ensure that they are followed regardless of my personal opinion.”
Bevin said that Planned Parenthood must also follow the law.
“This administration will have no tolerance for the type of brazen disregard that Planned Parenthood has shown for both the safety of women and the rule of law,” he continued. “We will hold Planned Parenthood accountable for knowingly endangering their patients by providing illegal abortions at a facility that was not properly licensed nor prepared to handle an emergency.”
Planned Parenthood says that it plans to resubmit the required transfer agreements and is asking that the licensing process move forward.
“We ask that the executive branch continue the licensure process rather than continue to make politically motivated accusations,” PPINK remarked in a statement.
As previously reported, in its annual report released in late December, the national office of Planned Parenthood outlined that the organization performed 323,999 abortions nationwide during the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
However, while the organization also claimed that it is “stronger than ever,” its figures showed that the number of women visiting Planned Parenthood is the lowest in almost a decade. The report totals its services provided as being 9,455,582, with business being down by nearly a million persons from the year before, when figures totaled 10,590,333.
Pop star Katy Perry’s company has been paid nearly $200,000 by the campaigns of presidential candidates she has endorsed, including Hillary Clinton, public records show.
Perry endorsed Clinton in October. Two months later, the Hillary for America campaign reported paying Perry’s company, Kitty Purry Inc., about $70,000 for “event production.”
It was not immediately clear which event that referred to or what services Perry’s company provided. Neither the Clinton campaign nor Perry’s manager responded to questions about the arrangement.
Perry has headlined Clinton campaign events, including an Iowa rally in late October. She and Elton John will perform a concert for campaign donors next month.
Clinton’s campaign is not the first to enlist the services of Perry’s company. Barack Obama’s reelection campaign paid Kitty Purry Inc. more than $128,000 for a host of services related to a campaign event.
Those payments were made weeks after the president was reelected.
The Obama campaign reported paying the company on Nov. 26, 2012 for event site rental, staging, sound, lighting, travel, and lodging. It was not clear which event those payments financed.
Perry was a high-profile Obama supporter during the 2012 campaign, even donning an Obama-themed dress, complete with campaign slogan “Forward,” during a concert at an Obama rally in Wisconsin.
Perry is one of a number of high-profile celebrities who have endorsed Clinton, but she has drawn fire from others in the music industry for her support of the former Secretary of State.
On Wednesday, singer and songwriter Ryn Weaver accused the Clinton campaign of paying for Perry’s endorsement.
MADISON, Wisc. — The Republican governor of Wisconsin signed two bills into law this week that strip the abortion giant Planned Parenthood of $7.5 million and redirect aid toward uncontroversial women’s health organizations.
Gov. Scott Walker held an official signing ceremony on Thursday at Life’s Connection in Waukesha, a non-profit organization that provides alternatives to abortion, where S.B. 237 and S.B. 238 received their final approval.
“Today, we signed two bills into law that prioritize women’s health while improving government and its services to the citizens of Wisconsin,” the Republican governor said in a statement. “We want to make sure as taxpayers, whether it’s state funds or federal funds that come through the state of Wisconsin, that they’re used in the way that’s responsible and reasonable.”
S.B. 237 diverts federal Title X funding from organizations that offer abortion services, meaning that approximately $3.5 million dollars will be stripped from Planned Parenthood. S.B. 238 places a limit on how much family planning groups can be reimbursed by Medicaid for prescriptions, which is estimated to cost Planned Parenthood $4 million.
SB 237 was approved by the Assembly last year and the Senate in January. SB 328 was approved by the state Senate in January and passed the state Assembly last week.
While the bills do not specifically mention Planned Parenthood, author Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, acknowledged to reporters that the legislation will affect the organization.
“This is a consistent stance with where I have always been, where many others in this body have always been, and that is, we are going to protect life,” he told the Cap Times. “I believe that that begins at conception, and I believe that one of the cornerstones of the Declaration of Independence and what our Constitution is drafted around is the protection of life.”
Pro-life and pro-family groups applauded the move.
“Wisconsin taxpayers shouldn’t be forced into this immoral partnership with Planned Parenthood, especially when better, low-cost community health care providers serve women and families far more comprehensively and outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities in Wisconsin 17 to 1,” said Casey Mattox of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
But Planned Parenthood viewed the legislation as a means to end abortion.
“The move was the latest in a long line of attacks by the governor and the Republican-controlled state legislature on the health of Wisconsin women and families,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement.
The organization also threatened to file suit.
“The law is directed just at Planned Parenthood. It’s to cut our funding so we can’t provide services,” Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin Director of government relations Nicole Safar told Newsday. “Legal action is certainly on the table. The law singles out Planned Parenthood.”
Some, however, state that the bills do not go far enough as they do not result in a total defunding of the abortion giant.
WAUKESHA, Wisconsin, February 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) - Governor Scott Walker has signed two bills that will deprive Wisconsin's Planned Parenthood offices of an estimated $8 million.
Even the site of the signing, a pro-life women's pregnancy center named Life's Connection in Waukesha, underscored that the governor embraced a new culture on abortion.
Assembly Bill 310 redirects the state's Title X funding away from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI) to other community health providers, a strategy favored by Republicans at the national level. It is expected to cost PPWI $3.5 million annually in tax revenue.
Currently, Planned Parenthood is the only statewide recipient of Title X funding. The bill passed the Assembly by a 60-35 vote.
“Cutting Planned Parenthood’s public funding is a fiscally and morally responsible step that furthers a culture of life in the great state of Wisconsin," said Pro-Life Wisconsin State Director Dan Miller. “Pro-Life Wisconsin is grateful to Gov. Walker for signing into law legislation that respects the consciences of Wisconsin taxpayers who oppose public funding of abortion."
The second new law (S.B. 238) only allows Planned Parenthood to bill Medicaid for the actual cost of contraceptives, a move that will save taxpayers an estimated $4.5 million.
In 2014, the state's Department of Health Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that two family planning facilities alone had charged the Medicaid program more than twice their allowable cost for birth control. Planned Parenthood warned, if it had to obey the law on reimbursements, it would have to close some of its offices. PPWI's public policy director, Nicole Safar, said at the time such an action would trigger “clinic closing” actions statewide.
The prospect did not concern the state's pro-life leaders. "Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin profits from killing unborn babies and sexualizing our youth," Miller said. "This is not health care but rather a violation of the trust of women and families."
That bill passed the Assembly with a vote of 61-35. Both passed the state Senate by a more narrow, 19-14 vote.
“Today, we signed two bills into law that prioritize women’s health while improving government and its services to the citizens of Wisconsin,” said Gov. Walker, a onetime 2016 Republican presidential front runner. “These bills require DHS to apply for additional federal funding for women’s health services to be obtained from less controversial providers and ensure prescription reimbursement processes are handled in a cost-based and transparent manner.”
