WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) today called on his colleagues in the Senate to vote with him to defund Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, received more than $350 million in taxpayer funding last year.

“Americans overwhelmingly agree that tax dollars should not be used to support abortion providers,” said Wicker.  “In 2009, Planned Parenthood performed 332,277 abortions across the country, which was more than one-fourth of all the abortions performed in the United States that year.  We have an opportunity today to stop taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, and I hope my colleagues will join me to defund this organization.”

Wicker, who was recently honored for his support of life, introduced the Life at Conception Act earlier this year to protect the unborn.  This legislation establishes in law what most Americans believe and what science has long known – that human life begins at the moment of conception - and therefore is entitled to legal protection from that point forward.  A 2008 Zogby International Poll found that 59% of those polled believe human life begins at conception. 

In 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its now-infamous Roe v. Wade decision, it did not tie the hands of Congress.  The Supreme Court refused to resolve the question of when life begins, but instead specifically acknowledged that if “personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”  The Life at Conception Act would ensure that the Constitution’s fundamental right to life is applied to all Americans, particularly those who cannot speak for themselves.

For more on Wicker’s Life at Conception Act, click here.

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