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Nixon Has Shown Support for Planned Parenthood Time and Again

August 16, 2007

JEFFERSON CITY – With a history of support for Planned Parenthood and his own “pro-choice” statements, Jay Nixon should publicly agree not to represent Missourians should pro-abortion forces challenge a pending state law requiring abortion providers to comply with new medical and structural standards.

Abortion provider Planned Parenthood told The Associated Press on July 23 that it was considering suing the state over the law that goes into effect on August 28, but Nixon has been silent on the issue. The defense of the law would fall to Nixon, who has shown for more than a decade that he is unwilling to stand up in court on behalf of Missourians against Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion forces.

Nixon’s failures began in 1996 after a federal judge overruled a restriction which prevented state funding from going to Planned Parenthood. Shortly after the ruling, Nixon said he was not convinced the state could “discriminate” when allocating family planning funds, and he claimed Planned Parenthood may have been unfairly singled out.  He then decided against appealing the decision.

A year later, the Legislature passed another bill to ban state funding for Planned Parenthood. In an attempt to sabotage the legislation, Nixon went back to the same federal judge who had rejected the previous legislation to consider the 1997 ban, and once again the judge sided with Planned Parenthood. Angry pro-life legislators later accused Nixon of torpedoing the legislation but their attempts to remove him from the case failed. 

Finally, in 1999 and under pressure from those same pro-life lawmakers, Nixon turned over the defense of a new state ban against Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds to outside attorney Jordan Cherrick. At the time of his decision, Nixon told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “‘I’m pro-choice, I have a conflict’ of interest.”

“Jay Nixon has proven time and time again that he is pro-abortion and willing to bow to the whims of abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, which is precisely why he must recuse himself from any and all lawsuits challenging bans against the use of taxpayer dollars for abortions, just like he did in 1999,” said Paul Sloca, communications director for the Missouri Republican Party. “It remains in the best interests of Missourians for Jay Nixon to commit to hiring an independent outside counsel to represent the pro-life interests of our state because of his admitted conflict of interest.”