MCCL Executive Director
Yesterday a strange and misleading attack on former Governor Tim Pawlenty and our Woman's Right to Know law was written by Joel Brind and posted on Jill Stanek's blog. This provides me another great opportunity to talk about the impact of Woman's Right to Know and the excellent pro-life record of Gov. Pawlenty.
On Apr. 14, 2003, our newly elected Gov. Pawlenty signed the Woman's Right to Know legislation into law—literally hours after it was passed by the Legislature. After nine long years of intense legislative battles—and vetoes of our legislation by Gov. Ventura and Gov. Carlson—our pro-life champion, Tim Pawlenty, finally empowered the women of our state with the facts about abortion!
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| Tim Pawlenty |
The results of our Woman's Right to Know law are awesome. Since the law went into effect, thousands of women have chosen life! Every year the Minnesota Department of Health releases a report on abortion. This report shows that about 2,500 women each year who contact an abortionist for an appointment, and then are given the packet of information and 24 hours to reflect on the information—as per the Woman's Right to Know law—never return to the abortion center!
In 2011, a total of 13,645 women contacted an abortionist for an appointment, but 2,574 of them never returned to the abortion center after receiving the Woman's Right to Know information. Since Gov. Pawlenty made Woman's Right to Know the law in our state, 15,696 more women have received the information than have aborted.
Gov. Pawlenty's Woman's Right to Know law is saving lives today and every day. In fact, his policies have led to a 21 percent decline in the number of abortions in our state over the last five years.
Because of pro-life stalwarts like Tim Pawlenty, we now have the lowest number of abortions performed per year in Minnesota since 1975, and the lowest abortion rate ever recorded.
