Florida House Majority Office: Myth vs. Fact The Truth about HB 1143 - HERE On April 30th, the Florida Legislature passed HB 1143, a Healthcare Bill which contained several great pro-lif e provisions. This bill was hotly debated in both the House and Senate Chambers in the final week of the Session. It passed the House 76 to 44 and the Senate 23 to 16. (See how your legislators voted by clicking on the blue links). This bill is very important for the primary reason that it actually does something very good and very powerful! This bill is THE most significant piece of pro-life legislation ever passed in Florida’s history. But it does not become law unless and until the Governor signs it. According to Florida family Action President John Stemberger, "Apart from the reversal of Roe v Wade this is the single greatest legal or policy measure the state of Florida can take to significantly reduce abortions statewide."
The ACLU and Planned Parenthood are aggressively opposing this bill and have pulled out all the stops with the abortion industry and are lobbying hard to ask Gov. Crist to veto it. In just a couple of days, over 1,000 calls were placed into the Gov’s office by our opponents asking for this good bill to be vetoed. The polling shows taxpayer funding of abortion is extremely unpopular with the people. A December 23, 2009 Quinnipiac poll found that 72 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortions. The governor has previously stated he is pro-life. Now he has the opportunity to exercise his pro-life principles and sign this good bill into law. However, he has expressed publicly that he has “ very serious concerns” about the bill. Here are the important provisions in HB 1143: - Prohibits federal and state taxpayer funding of abortion. The bill does not allow health insurance policies that receive state or federal funds to provide coverage for abortions.
- A woman seeking an abortion will undergo an ultrasound, a normal medical procedure for pregnant women to determine gestational age of the fetus , before the abortion and have the information explained to her unless she opts out of seeing the ultrasound image. The bill provides women with all of the available information through technology that will enable her to make an informed choice regarding an abortion decision.
- The bill also declares that the public policy of Florida is that a federal, state, or local government may not compel a person to purchase health insurance or health services.
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Inspirational Message at High School Events
This bill allows district school boards to permit the delivery of an inspirational message, including a prayer or an invocation, at a noncompulsory high school activity, including a student assembly, a sports event, or other school-related activity, if a majority of the participating students request the message and select a student representative to deliver the message.
