Taxpayers are paying around 24% of abortions in America, although that might seem like a small percentage, that’s a grand total of 250,000 full abortions paid for in taxes. For people in support of abortions, this might sound perfect. But to those who identify as pro-life, this is less than stellar. This is just one example of taxpayers giving cash to organizations, programs, or something that is greatly opposed to their way of thinking or religious values.

But should Americans decide where where their tax dollars go? Most of our taxes go to fund Medicare, provide retired and disabled families with cash, and our military. Medicaid, medicare, and things like it all fund abortion, typically pregnancies due to rape, incest, or medical emergency.

Some people, typically those who are pro-life, say that no one should have to fund an act they are oppose to, politically, religiously, or morally. “Would you force a priest to  fund a gay wedding? It’s not much to ask, to control to some extent the places our tax money goes,” says Bernard Harrington, a pro-life identifying man. Harrington is not the only one who feels this way. One of the biggest goals for the pro-life movement is to defund partially or completely, clinics like Planned Parenthood.

However, others are not keen of defunding abortion. Like, Katie Strickland who says; “Every woman has a choice, and to defund (abortion) clinics would make that choice, for some, unavailable.” Katie volunteers occasionally at Planned Parenthood and identifies as pro-choice. The pro-choice movement works to keep clinics funded, and even fund them more.

Should abortion be paid at by pro-life taxpayers? Or is this a federal or state issue? “I don’t know if I should a say in the morals of others, especially with something like abortion, but funding isn’t a completely moral based thing?,” says Trevor Macfarlane, a centrist who does not identify with either extremes, “I just hope that sometime in 2019 we can find some kind of middle ground.”