Must Read: Rep. Steve O'Ban's Floor Speech on HB 1044

Right not to be Coerced to Take Human Life

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not about one’s views on regulating abortion or a women’s right to choose. This bill is about the value we place on the freedom of conscience. This bill is a test of all of us in this chamber. Do we nurture and celebrate people who follow their conscience? Or, do we burden and undermine conscience? And not just any issue of conscience is at stake.

This bill would force Americans to violate conscience on the most profound moral issue imaginable. This bill would force Americans to assist in taking what they believe to be innocent human life. Since the Quakers in colonial America were jailed for refusing to serve in colonial militias, our nation has affirmed the right of conscience. Their refusal to take life changed colonial laws and in every armed conflict since, Americans have been exempted for conscience sake. Our laws have responded to protect conscience, again and again.

• Within weeks of Roe v Wade in 1973, every state and the federal gov’t enacted exemptions so doctors would not be forced to take human life.
• Our state’s physician-assisted suicide laws, exempt physicians from being coerced to take human life. 
•  Our state corrections employees are excused from participating in state executions.

And yet, not since the Quakers were jailed in colonial America, would a law punish Americans who refuse to take human life, until HB 1044. No other state, no other gov’t has broken with the long tradition of our nation protecting conscience in this way, until HB 1044.

DSHS Knowingly Violating Hyde Amendment, Using Federal Tax Dollars to Fund Abortions

In this exclusive report, AIW can now reveal the results of an investigation into Washington and other states in which we have learned that they are routinely violating federal law.

Since 1976, it has been illegal to use federal Medicaid money to pay for abortions. States that opted to subsidize the abortion industry through Medicaid had to make sure to carefully segregate funds so that abortions were only paid for out of state Medicaid dollars. (Medicaid is a federal program with a complicated funding formula, but in brief, it's funded from a mix of federal and state monies.)

But the Medicaid program also includes a relatively little-known program called "Medicaid Transportation". This program pays for the travel costs to and from medical appointments that are covered by Medicaid. The rationale is, apparently, that a doctor appointment is no good if you can't get to it.

Since states like Washington (and California and New York) pay for abortions under Medicaid, the travel to and from the abortion clinic is also picked up by the Medicaid program.

Readers may remember our coverage of the scandal last year in which a Ballard High School student was taken from school for an abortion without her parents' knowledge, all arranged by the schools' "Health Clinic" (run by Swedish Hospital). During this investigation we also discovered that Hopelink, an organization that milks unwitting churches and other groups into partnership to help feed the hungry, is running secret "Abortion Taxis" that shuttle girls and women to and from abortion clinic appointments, often without their parents' knowledge.