In 2020, members of the Minneapolis City Council were among the first to call for defunding the police, with some going so far as to call for abolishing the police department entirely.
Now, two members of the current City Council could be the vanguard of a new movement in the nation’s progressive cities. Instead of “defund the police,” the new rallying cry would be “fund killing babies.”
According to The Daily Wire, two members of the City Council have called upon Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to include money in the budget to subsidize abortions in Minnesota’s largest city.
(At The Western Journal, we’ll always stand up for the sanctity of human life — and vehemently oppose any use of taxpayer dollars to terminate the lives of the unborn. If you support our mission, please consider subscribing.)
City Council members Aisha Chughtai and Robin Wonsley publicly demanded funding for subsidized abortion in the city’s upcoming budget at an event on Sunday in conjunction with the group Pro-Choice Minnesota and other pro-abortion groups.
“City governments are uniquely positioned to respond to public health crises. Now that there is no longer a federal right to abortion, it’s up to our local leaders to protect and expand our right to access abortion care,” Pro-Choice Minnesota said in a Facebook post.
While the big news from the event was that the initiative had the support of Chughtai and Wonsley, the big-ticket speaker at the rally at the state Capitol was none other than Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, apparently taking some time out from expressing her disdain for Jews so she could express her disdain for the unborn instead.
In her speech, the left-wing congresswoman predictably called the Supreme Court illegitimate for overturning Roe v. Wade last month and blamed the “fundamentalist” “religious right” for its opposition to abortion.
“Let me be clear: Just like in Congress, [your rights] can go away in the blink of an eye,” Omar said, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
“So if you don’t want to go back to a time when old, ultra-conservative white men decide what you do with your body, you have to fight back with us.”
With other people’s tax dollars, of course!
Maggie Meyer, executive director of Pro-Choice Minnesota, noted in an interview that Mayor Frey promised Minneapolis would “continue to be a haven for abortion.”
Abortion is health care. I will say that again and again. The women of our country and our city deserve the right to choose what happens to their OWN body. MPLS will continue to be a haven for those seeking an abortion.
— Mayor Jacob Frey (@MayorFrey) June 24, 2022
Well, Meyer said, it’s time for Frey to put his (or, rather, your) money where his mouth is.
“We’re calling on Mayor Frey to affirm his commitment to making Minneapolis a ‘safe haven’ for abortion access through direct funding, because without financial support the legal right is not sufficient in ensuring that people can actually access the abortion care they need,” she said.
Granted, two council members do not equal a blank check on subsidized abortion in Minneapolis — at least not yet.
Should city taxpayers fund residents’ abortions?
However, it’s worth noting the Minneapolis City Council is a fount of brilliant ideas. In the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody in May 2020, the council became the tip of the spear in the “defund the police” movement.
The City Council moved to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department entirely and remake law enforcement in the city from the ground up.
Predictable things began to happen.
Crime skyrocketed as police officers retired. The council then began pushing top police officials to respond more aggressively to the city’s crime problem, despite having previously voted to put abolishing the department on the ballot. It cut $8 million from the city’s policing budget, however, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
While neither Chugtai nor Wonsley was on the council until 2021, both campaigned on abolishing the police. Voters would end up rejecting the plan, according to CNBC.
Will voters, fellow council members and Frey buy into Chugtai and Wonsley’s vision of subsidized abortions?
Why not?
The city has already become a haven for carjacking, robberies and murders thanks to defunding (and attempting to abolish) the police. That’s a pretty logical way to make a city a haven for crime, one must admit.
Now, Frey insists he wants Minneapolis to be a haven for killing the unborn.
If defunding the police makes your city a haven for crime, how do you achieve the same results for abortion?
The question practically answers itself — and if Frey isn’t bright enough to get there on his own, he certainly has City Council members Chugtai and Wonsley to help him out.
