Thoughts on De-Funding Planned Parenthood

 

The day after the debate over Planned Parenthood funding: Some thoughts

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-life Senator Joni Ernest (R-Iowa), sponsor of S.1881

The most important takeaway from yesterday’s vote on S. 1881 is not–repeat not–that the Democrats were able to block a bill that would end all federal funding of the nation’s largest abortion provider. While unfortunate, the inability of pro-lifers in the Senate to get 60 votes to “invoke cloture” (move the bill forward) is a mere bump in the road. Here’s what really matters.
#1. The vote was 53 to 46. But one pro-lifer was absent and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) switched his vote to opposition only so that he would be eligible to enter a motion to reconsider. So the real number is 55. Four years ago only 42 senators voted for the cutoff. Think about that for a second because

#2. That huge jump is primarily a reflection of your work at helping elect pro-life senators and the shock and horror engendered by the first four undercover videos filmed by the Center for Medical Progress. As ghastly and revolting as they were, there are many more to come. Today’s fifth video shows Planned Parenthood at its worst–so far. If anyone was genuinely on the fence–in or out of the U.S. Senate–this could well be the tipping point.

#3. Defenders of Planned Parenthood went to the attic and dusted off the old reliables. For example, that pro-life Senate Republicans were pandering to the “most extreme anti-choicers”; that without Planned Parenthood massive numbers of women would not receive needed health care, and (of course); that there were more important issues to occupy the Senate’s time.
From the viewpoint of PPFA’s most ardent supporters, you do what you have to even if it defies reason. But….

Only “extreme anti-choicers” grow nauseous watching and listening to leading PPFA executives paw through intact hearts and livers and lungs and brains? Really?
Only PPFA can provide basic health care? As was pointed out repeatedly, PPFA refers for mammograms, it does not (with perhaps one or two exceptions) actually perform them. It’s a variation on the “too big to fail” idea and is misleading from beginning to end.
And, honestly, is a discussion over infrastructure spending of more lasting significance than what a blatantly politicized organization–PPFA–can get away with because of almost uniform support by Democrats?

There are many others, here’s just one.
#4. In the most gentlemanly fashion, pro-life Sen. James Lankford (R-Ok.) refused to be browbeaten by the shrill and tiresome “war on women” mantra or by the haughty declaration that no father ever has a voice in what happens to his unborn children. He is the father of two daughters. I am the father of three daughters and a son. Like us, all fathers need to rise up to take a stand on behalf of the lives of their unborn children.

Monday’s vote is the first of many steps in the journey to de-fund an organization whose viciousness toward unborn children is matched only by its willingness to traffic in their body parts.