If we conservatives truly believe abortion is what we say it is — the butchering of an unborn person — then ending the practice must be our top priority.
Everything else should pale in comparison to the gruesome image of an unborn baby girl resting peacefully in her mother’s womb before a poisoned needle suddenly pierces and then stops her heart, her limbs snipped off and pulled apart, and finally her broken body being thrown into the garbage.
That’s not just an image. It’s the reality of a practice that occurs daily with the full protection, and at least partial funding, from our federal government.
So what does our Republican Congress do about it?
They just failed, again, to prevent millions of taxpayer dollars from flowing to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s top abortion provider.
But why?
Planned Parenthood doesn’t receive any individual federal appropriations, but it does collect millions from Medicaid and related federal grants. Last month, Politico reported that some conservatives in the House attempted to tie their support for the recent $1.3 trillion federal spending bill to a measure that would finally block all such funding.
“The proposal actually goes further than previous GOP attempts to defund Planned Parenthood,” wrote Dylan Scott on Vox, during negotiations over the bill. “This latest proposal would block Medicaid and several other federal funding sources, a full cutoff of federal dollars going to the organization.”
Sadly, their effort failed and wasn’t included in the final bill.
Some say not including the measure to fully defund Planned Parenthood was a compromise to avoid a partial government shutdown and win other concessions. Others say it was a complete betrayal of the promises made by President Donald Trump and the GOP Congress .
Maybe it was a little of both, but I blame the result on a lack of focus, a blurred sense of proportion between it and other issues, and a general numbing to the decades-long problem of legalized abortion.
Compromise is generally desirable. Our constitution was even designed to force such a thing because the Framers knew it’d be needed to ensure the survivability of a large and diverse republic.
But not all of the time.
Where does one compromise on slavery?
Where does one compromise on women voting?
And where does one compromise on murdering babies?
The answer to these questions has been and will always be crystal clear to those with eyes to see: There can be no compromise.
Yet that’s what our president and our Congress just did, again, by failing to fully defunding Planned Parenthood.
Stalwart conservative Congressmen Mo Brooks of Huntsville and Gary Palmer of Birmingham voted against the massive spending bill. Good for them.
But it was sad to see Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa) vote for the thing, along with Republican U.S. Reps. Bradley Byrne of Mobile, Martha Roby of Montgomery, Mike Rodgers of Saks, and Robert Aderholt of Haleyville.
They all had their rationale and justifiable reasons, but again, all pale in comparison to what matters most.
We avoided a government shutdown!
Great, you also failed to fully defund Planned Parenthood, as the party promised.
We secured millions in funding for projects in Alabama!
Great, you also failed to fully defund Planned Parenthood, as the party promised.
We funded a wee bit of the border wall!
Great, you also failed to fully defund Planned Parenthood, as the party promised.
Our lawmakers will face this same issue in a few months. The same people will be clamoring for the same funds. And the same compromises will be suggested. And … the same opportunity will present itself to finally, once and for all, stop the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood.
When signing the bill, the president said, “Never again.”
Let’s hope the Republicans in Congress say the same, or else the voters might.
And the party would deserve it.
UPDATED at 6:05 p.m., April 10, to clarify that the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill didn’t include any funding specifically for Planned Parenthood. It only failed to prohibit the abortion provider from receiving millions in federal dollars should it apply for and then be approved for such funds.
@jpepperbryars is the editor of Yellowhammer News and the author of American Warfighter
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