FACTS & STATS
1. Massachusetts spends your income tax dollars to pay for abortions.
2. In fiscal year 2015, the most recent year for which records are available, Massachusetts collected $14,040,800 in income taxes and spent $1,400,000 for 3750 publicly funded abortions.
3. Though actual figures are virtually impossible to obtain, we know that, by order of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the commonwealth continues to provide public funding for abortion.
4. Massachusetts law exempts certain medical professionals and others, applying to attend health-care fields of study, from participating in abortion procedures or agreeing to counsel, suggest, recommend, or assist in abortions, if doing so is contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions. There is no such protection for taxpayers, who oppose abortion and object to having their tax dollars pay for them.
5. Bill H. 3005 seeks to remedy this inequity by giving taxpayers an option to indicate on their income tax form that they want the portion of their taxes that would go to fund abortion to be used, instead, to promote and support the Baby Safe Haven program. This initiative permits a desperate parent to surrender a newborn to a designated facility in a hospital, police station, or manned fire station without incurring criminal liability.
6. The option for taxpayers to redirect tax dollars away from abortion does not change the amount a taxpayer owes or reduce the amount of a refund. Neither does it decrease the amount of taxes the commonwealth collects.
7. H. 3005 will merely end the unfair, discriminatory treatment of taxpayers, who violate their religious beliefs and moral convictions by paying for abortion. Instead, the bill will grant them the same conscience protection enjoyed by other Massachusetts citizens, who oppose abortion and are employed in abortion-related work or are applying for healthcare programs.
1 https://malegislature.gov/Budget/FY2015/FinalBudget Accessed 05072021.
2 www.guttmacher.org/report/public-funding-family-planning-abortion-services-FY-1980-2015# Table 4. Accessed 05072021
3 M.G.L. ch. 112, §12I, M.G. L. ch.111L, §7.
4 M.G. L. ch. 119, §39½.