Pro-life campaign speech for Jim Pillen

 

Okay, Jim Pillen, I received your pro-life mailing today and as a result, wrote a campaign speech for you. Feel free to use this speech in all your campaign appearances. Here’s how it goes:

 

You all know how strongly I profess the Christian faith and hold a pro-life position in all matters. Therefore, as governor I will propose the following legislation:

 

(1) Immediately enact a so-called “life tax” to provide for public funding of “life services,” defined as prenatal health care, treatment for medical conditions arising from pregnancy, and care, including medical care, clothing, food, shelter, and both education and special education as needed, for any infant born to a mother who would otherwise have chosen to abort it. Life services would continue until the child is 18 years old.

 

(2) Establish residency requirements, for access to such support, similar to those already established, for example, for tuition at post-secondary institutions.

 

(3) Require DNA testing of mother, infant, and father (when the father can be ascertained) when an infant is born to a mother who would otherwise have aborted it. Costs of such testing would be paid by life tax revenues. If necessary, use test results to identify the father.

 

(4) Require, by law, the father to contribute half of the costs incurred in providing life services to mother and infant, and provide for an 18-year lien on the father’s earnings if necessary, with an extension to such time as the state is re-paid half of the life services costs. Include in this law a provision that the father’s parents are liable for this contribution if the father is a minor.

 

(5) Immediately establish comprehensive sex-education programs in all public schools, the curriculum to include effective contraception. Withhold certification from private schools that do not institute such a curriculum.

 

(6) Immediately provide birth control services for all individuals who want them but are unable to afford them. Pay for these services through the life tax. Services would include oral contraceptives, Plan B, condoms, patches, injections, and all other forms of artificial birth control to individuals over the age of 14. These services would be available in school health centers.

 

(7) In the event that an infant born to a mother who would otherwise have obtained an abortion requires long-term care or services due to a congenital condition, then such care and services would be provided by the state and funded by life tax revenues.

 

(8) In the event that pregnancy results from rape or incest, the mother would receive a lifetime stipend for carrying the fetus to term and the state would fund all services resulting from this birth, including counseling, adoptive services, and treatment of any medical conditions, including mental or emotional ones, resulting from the conception and delivery of this infant. In the case of rape or incest, residency and means requirements do not apply.

 

(9) The overall impact of this program, including life tax and life services, will be reviewed every ten years by qualified consultants from outside the state. Life tax will be adjusted annually to ensure revenues adequate to support life services programs.

 

I, Jim Pillen, am completely convinced that my pro-life Christian Republican colleagues in the legislature will stand firmly behind this legislation. Nebraska will then become a national model for Christian Republican pro-life governance!