By Scott Fischbach

State tax money in Minnesota is used for a lot of good things. It funds our schools, our parks, our nursing homes. It builds our roads and helps the underprivileged. But in recent years, about $1.5 million of our taxpayer dollars annually have been diverted to the purpose of killing unborn children.

So while the vast majority of state money is arguably used to build a better life for Minnesotans, some tax dollars help to end the lives of Minnesotans. The abortion funding must come to an end.

The people of Minnesota have never voted to pay for abortions with state money, and neither has the state Legislature.

Taxpayer funding of abortion was imposed upon us by a wrongly decided court case known as Doe vs. Gomez in the mid-1990s.

Now it is time for the Legislature to represent the will of the people by passing a ban on taxpayer-funded abortions, and for Gov. Mark Dayton to allow the ban to become law. We know that Gov. Dayton supports abortion; he always has. But many who consider themselves "pro-choice" acknowledge that using tax dollars to pay for elective abortions goes too far.

Funding abortion seems especially unwise at a time when the state faces a massive $6.5 billion deficit. Paying abortionists to kill unborn Minnesotans is an expense that we simply cannot afford, and that unborn babies can live without.

According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, taxpayers bought 50,869 abortions at a cost of $15.6 million between July of 1994 and December of 2008. Some of those unborn victims would already be paying taxes to the state if they hadn't been killed using state taxes. At a time of record deficits, unfunded mandates, consolidated schools, Social Security heading into the red and Medicaid bankruptcy, a few extra taxpayers would come in handy.

I know the argument will be made by the other side that poor women ought to have the same access to abortion as rich women. But if we really want what's best for disadvantaged mothers and their babies, we will help them, not offer them abortions. If there is any common ground on abortion in our society today, it is this: Both sides know that abortions can hurt women and that the complications from undergoing an abortion can be horrific, sometimes leading to death for the mother, and always for the baby.

The vast majority of taxpayer-funded abortions are covered under Medical Assistance, Minnesota's Medicaid program.

These taxpayer funds are paying for abortions. Public funding of abortion is unjust, regardless of the program under which it is funded.

We are Minnesotans. We live in one of the richest states in the richest country in the history of the world; we can do better than to have state-funded abortions of the innocent offspring of pregnant women in need. If our society's answer to poverty is to abort the children of the poor, God help us.

Scott Fischbach is executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. This commentary first appeared on the webpage of Minnesota Public Radio at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/01/26/fischbach/