TRENTON – The senator who fought to restore funding for family planning and health needs was discouraged by Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of the money Thursday.
Christie said Thursday he issued a line-item veto on the $7.5 million in family planning funds that had been proposed by Democrats.
Sen. Loretta Weinberg, (D-37), Teaneck, had sponsored a bill calling for the restoration of those funds, and a related resolution was passed with Republican Sens. Jennifer Beck of Red Bank and Diane Allen of Edgewater Park lending support.
Weinberg, in a phone interview this evening, said the veto was predictable.
“I’m not surprised. I’m discouraged for the women of New Jersey. It saddens me that he had to engage in this type of fight. It defies logic. It’s purely ideological.”
She’s hoping to garner enough bipartisan support to override Christie’s veto. She said 27 votes would be needed.
The resolution passed 26-13 in early June.
But not all were displeased by the governor’s cut. Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, said Weinberg’s push for the funding was the only ideology present in the debate.
“We applaud Governor Christie for once again standing up for the integrity of NJ taxpayers and against the political machinations of legislators who use women’s health as an excuse to further a misguided ideological agenda,” Tasy said. “Given the growing laundry list of Planned Parenthood’s misdeeds, it is unfathomable that anyone who truly cares about women’s health and their well being would continue to push funding of these clinics.”
Christie defended all his line items today with a simple answer. “We cannot afford it,” he said, adding the state does not have a money tree.
The money would have been used for women to receive family planning services, including contraception, pregnancy detection, gynecological and cancer screenings, menopausal services and infertility testing.
Weinberg has said the money would have gone to more than 50 family planning centers and it would not have been used for abortions.
