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LINCOLN, Neb. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A state governor is defending the sanctity of life with a new state budget withholding money from funding abortion mills.

On Wednesday, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts signed an $8.8 billion two-year budget that removes federal family planning funding to Planned Parenthood (PP) and other abortuaries committing, promoting or referring clients for abortions. The bill mandates health clinics must prove physical, financial and legal separation from abortion services.

"These bills contain important new budget language, which ensures that Title X taxpayer dollars do not fund abortion services, including abortion referrals, at any clinic in Nebraska," said Ricketts in a press release.

The pro-life governor tweeted his support of his decision on Wednesday, saying, "Today, I signed new #prolife budget language into law. This provision ensures that Title X taxpayer dollars do not fund abortion services, including abortion referrals, at any clinic in Nebraska."

Today, I signed new #prolife budget language into law. This provision ensures that Title X taxpayer dollars do not fund abortion services, including abortion referrals, at any clinic in Nebraska.



Read more about the state budget here: https://t.co/GAD5jYtjpA — Gov. Pete Ricketts (@GovRicketts) April 4, 2018

The budget was approved by Ricketts after the state legislature passed it by a majority vote 38-6 on Tuesday. The Republican governor proposed the measure in the state budget earlier this year.

PP is the largest recipient of funding under Title X, allowing them to pay staff, buy equipment, fund abortion-inducing emergency contraception like Plan B — also known as the morning-after pill, and lobby for taxpayer funding. The abortion giant murders more than 321,000 children a year while receiving over $500 million in taxpayer grants and reimbursements.

Between 2013 and 2015, PP received more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds, including federal, state funds and Medicaid, which is jointly funded by the government and states.

The new budget retains the current amount of Title X funding, providing "reproductive healthcare for thousands of Nebraska women and men."

Nebraska is a pro-life state, so our budget should reflect our values.

Ricketts continued, "Nebraska is a pro-life state, so our budget should reflect our values. Any organization can have access to these dollars as long as they don't provide abortions."

Last April, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill reversing President Barack Obama's proposed ruling preventing a state from withholding Title X family-planning from health-care clinics providing abortion.

Trump's law allows states to redirect Title X taxpayer funding from PP to local health clinics that provide a number of family services, including prenatal care.

Two states, including South Carolina and Arizona, attempted to defund the abortion giant last year. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed an executive order in August to withdraw taxpayer funding from PP. "[T]he State of South Carolina has a strong culture and longstanding tradition of protecting and defending the life and liberty of the unborn," read the first line of the executive order.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled in August that Arkansas can suspend Medicaid reimbursements to PP following the release in 2015 of 11 undercover videos by David Daleiden's pro-life organization, Center for Medical Progress, revealing representatives of PP trafficking in the selling of tissue from aborted babies.

Monica Burke, a research assistant at the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, insisted that any clinic that performs abortions should not receive taxpayer funding.

"Taxpayers should not be forced to fund Planned Parenthood, one of the largest abortion providers in the country," Burke commented. "Such funding should instead be directed toward the thousands of centers that provide health care for women without entangling government with the abortion industry."

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