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Minnesota House of Representatives

State Representative Jim Davnie

445 State Office BuildingState Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-0173

For more information contact: Ted Modrich 651-296-5809

Posted: 2011-07-27 00:00:00
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HOUSE BRIEFS

Family Planning

The election of conservative majorities to both houses of the Minnesota legislature in 2010 created a situation where various women’s health issues were points of debate and conflict this past session. These reproductive decisions touch on some of the most fundamental beliefs one can possess. They involve matters of faith, science, conscience, law, and ethics. In order to preserve these rights for all women adequately funded family planning services is important in Minnesota.

There were a number of efforts this year to restrict the health care choices available to women. During the legislative session, we saw proposals to: (1) cut state family planning grants by $5.35 million; (2) restrict public funding of abortions for poor women; and (3) ban abortions of fetuses that are 22 weeks’ gestational age or older. Republican legislative leaders included these sorts of controversial policy measures in their final budget offer during the negotiations preceding the government shutdown.

As you know, on July 14 Gov. Dayton agreed to the June 30 Republican proposal of an accelerated school shift and borrowing from future tobacco settlement revenues in order to end the shutdown. Although I understand the difficult position in which the Governor was placed by the GOP’s stubborn refusal to consider raising any new revenue from the wealthiest Minnesotans, I could not and did not support this funding approach.

That being said, it was past time to get our state back up and running. I very much appreciate that the Governor expressly ruled out divisive policy measures as part of a final compromise, and that the agreement helped to mitigate a number of health and human services cuts. The final HHS bill passed during the special session (H.F. 25) contained no cut to family planning.

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