Connecticut Democrats are attempting to “fight back” against President Donald Trump’s landslide national election and a White House agenda that has already included multiple pro-life initiatives.
One of two bills passed by the state legislature last week through an emergency certification process awarded $800,000 in Connecticut taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood of Southern New England for the purpose of stockpiling abortion-inducing drugs.
The other emergency bill – which provides funding to organizations impacted by the Trump administration’s policies – awards yet another $2.8 million to Planned Parenthood, making the abortion vendor “the biggest nonprofit beneficiary of the legislation,” reported CT Mirror.
Other organizations that reportedly received grants from Connecticut taxpayers include refugee resettlement agencies and organizations whose funding has been frozen by the Trump administration.
The CT Mirror report noted the bills were passed amid objections from Republicans in both chambers regarding a lack of transparency about how the recipient organizations were selected.
Family Institute of Connecticut Action Executive Director Peter Wolfgang told CatholicVote his organization and its allies are “outraged that our state’s Democrats just handed over $800,000 of our tax dollars to Planned Parenthood through an emergency procedure with no input from the public.”
Wolfgang added he and his allies “have beaten bills from the Kill Babies Caucus before and we can beat them again, so long as we have a fair shot at making our voice heard. We and thousands of Connecticut pro-lifers will speak as one against this political payoff at our expense at the 4th annual CT March for Life in Hartford on March 19th.”
Planned Parenthood will use its $800,000 grant from Connecticut taxpayers to stockpile mifepristone, one of two drugs used to end the lives of unborn babies.
The legislature’s Reproductive Rights Caucus, co-chaired by state Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, said during a news conference that the so-called right to abortion is under attack by the Trump administration.
“Reproductive rights and reproductive health care are under threat as never before,” said Blumenthal, the son of U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, who spearheaded the Women’s Health Protection Act to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“The Trump administration and its project 2025 are not only hostile to reproductive health care and reproductive choice but actively seek to attack it through the law and law enforcement,” Blumenthal said, according to CT News Junkie.
Blumenthal touted his state’s “shield law,” which allows patients from pro-life states to legally terminate their pregnancies in Connecticut and protects Connecticut abortionists from legal action as well.
“We have to be cognizant and headstrong and fight back against attacks like this which attempt to intimidate our doctors, our nurses, our providers, our residents, and our people,” Blumenthal said.
According to CT Mirror, Planned Parenthood affiliate Vice President Gretchen Raffa affirmed that part of the taxpayer funding she received will go towards stockpiling mifepristone, a drug used to end pregnancies.
“We know that there are threats that are coming from the federal administration and Congress, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that people will continue to have access to medication abortion and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care,” Raffa said.
Recent research conducted by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute found that women and girls who end their pregnancies with abortion-inducing drugs are significantly more likely to experience serious medical problems and seek help at an emergency room than women who have surgical abortions or live births.
According to Family Institute of Connecticut Action, the funding awarded to Planned Parenthood’s Connecticut affiliate “comes on top of the extra $3 million that our state government gave to Planned Parenthood in the dead of night on the second-to-last day of the legislative session last year.”
While Kamala Harris won Connecticut in November by a smaller margin than was expected, the state legislature added more Democrats to its ranks, creating a veto-proof supermajority with a Democratic governor, Ned Lamont.