By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer
WEST MONROE – While state Rep. Frank Hoffmann awaited the birth of his new granddaughter in a Texas hospital July 11, he shared some thoughts with the Baptist Message about his personal mission to protect the unborn.
LOUISIANA LEADER
A long-time pro-life supporter, Hoffmann has used his tenure in the Louisiana legislature to push through key pro-life bills, for instance, preventing insurance companies in the state from offering coverage of elective abortions, and, requiring abortion clinics in Louisiana to post information informing women about the alternatives to abortion.
Most recently, he championed House Bill 891, now Act 498, prohibiting Louisiana from transferring any public funds to an abortion provider, or, to any entity tied “physically [shared facility] or financially” to an abortion provider.
The significance of the legislation became clear when Governor John Bel Edwards signed the legislation into law May 23 just hours after a U.S. District judge ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit to force the state Department of Health and Hospitals to issue a license to perform abortions in the same New Orleans facility where Medicaid funded “family planning” services are offered.
Now Planned Parenthood faces an obstacle in the form of the firewall that Hoffman’s legislation created that keeps abortions from being linked with any other government-funded services.
Act 498 corrected some weaknesses in a similar bill, H.B. 338, approved in 2016, but held up in federal court because of confusion about whether the language prevented an abortion clinic from receiving basic government services.
The new bill clarifies the intention of the original bill and narrows its target.
“We still keep the heart of the bill that if you are performing abortions in the state you can’t get any monies for anything else you do in that building,” said Hoffmann, a LIFE group teacher at First Baptist Church in West Monroe. “But it allows things like firemen and police coming in there. We didn’t want a good bill to be lost in court for some silly reason, and that’s how opponents were trying to kill it.”
NATIONAL EFFORT
The significance of Hoffmann’s legislation is magnified by the 2017 tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence in the U.S. Senate to end an Obama-era rule and allow states to withhold federal family planning funds from Planned Parenthood.
Hoffman said he is hopeful future efforts will make abortion illegal in the state and nation.
“The one thing I would like to see accomplished most is Roe v Wade overturned and abortions declared illegal,” he said.
“We already have a ‘trigger law’ on the books that bans abortions statewide, except when a mother’s life is threatened, if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned. We are very proud of that law and happy it is in place.”
BEYOND BATON ROUGE
As Hoffmann nears the end of his time as a state representative, he said this session has been the most challenging, including the vote to renew the .45 percent of an existing penny sales tax until 2025. The bill is expected to fund a five percent increase in state spending for 2019.
“We had three special sessions,” he said. “I wasn’t proud we had to do that. I hope things can get better and Louisiana can be healthier in the big picture.”
Hoffmann said he has no regrets about coming out of retirement to serve Louisianans. A former educator in the Ouachita Parish Public Schools for 39 years, Hoffmann suggested that Christians should not take a backseat to involvement in politics.
“It’s obviously important for Christians to be involved,” said Hoffmann, who accepted Christ as his Savior when he was 11 years old. “In politics, we do so many things that determine what government does. It’s important we do the right kind of things as a state, and I believe Christians are equipped to help us do just that.”
