By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.

Pro-Life Governor Chris Christie

If you expected the supporters of Planned Parenthood to pack up and go home once their efforts to restore "family planning" funding to New Jersey's state budget were defeated, you have seriously underestimated their resolve. They're back again, pushing New Jersey's pro-life governor Chris Christie (R) to restore the funding. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday that Democrats say that they've found $5million unspent dollars in last year's state budget--money that was originally supposed to go for county correctional facilities.

As reported by National Right to Life News Today, on October 7, 2010, Gov. Christie left $7.5 million in "family planning" funds out of the state budget he proposed in March of 2010, the first since his election in 2009. Despite vociferous protests and pleadings from the family planning industry and their allies in the press, Christie persisted. He said, "I don't believe that is a priority in a budget where you have to cut $11 billion" (Gloucester County Times 6/25/10).

The legislature voted to restore the funding in June, saying they had found unused funds in an employee prescription drug program. But Republicans countered that this would have actually resulted in a $5.6 million deficit in the program (Courier-Post, 9/17/10). Ultimately, in September, enough Republicans switched sides to defeat the legislature's effort to override the governor's veto of their refunding (Associated Press, 9/20/10).

Democrat leaders said then that they were looking for other sources of funding in the state budget. One specifically mentioned that she was looking at money set aside to pay counties to house certain prisoners (Associated Press, 9/20/10).

That effort was formally revived on Monday with the decision of the Assembly Appropriations Committee to forward a bill to the New Jersey Assembly shifting $5million in unspent funds from the state's allocation for county correctional facilities to family planning centers, the Inquirer reported.

Michelle Jaker, executive director of the Family Planning Association of New Jersey told the committee, at least three clinics had already closed, the Inquirer reported. "Unless we take action today, more agencies will announce more closures, layoffs, and hour reductions by the end of the year."

Though no state funds are supposed to go for abortion, pro-lifers have long made the case that such funding helps keep many of these clinics, which often do abortions, in business by helping to cover salaries, office equipment, and rent, as well as helping legitimate them in the eyes of the public.

Along with that bill, the committee approved and forwarded a bill directing the state to apply for expanded Medicaid coverage of family planning from the Federal government.

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