The government avoided a shutdown earlier this month when it reached a budget deal costing over $1 trillion. And once more, the funding of Planned Parenthood was at the forefront. Included in that budget is the continued funding of the abortion chain, at least until September. Planned Parenthood currently receives over $553 million, according to their own most recent annual report from 2014-2015. As this taxpayer funding increases, however, legitimate services from the abortion chain decrease.
Planned Parenthood is a scandal ridden organization which performs the most abortions in the nation — more than 34 percent. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to defund Planned Parenthood. Speaker Paul Ryan has likewise assured that defunding would happen.
Pro-life Republicans control the Senate, meaning that the party which passed the “most pro-life platform in history” at its 2016 convention now controls the White House, Senate, and House — yet the organization which broke precedent to endorse Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the primary is still being funded.
Ryan has defended his efforts, saying that the defunding process has to be done through the reconciliation process, which means it would only need 51 votes to pass, as opposed to the 60 votes needed for a spending bill.
The proposed health care bill, which has been revived after being pulled from the floor vote in late March, is expected to be taken up again. The American Health Care Act would defund Planned Parenthood for a year and redirect those funds to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), which provide several comprehensive health care services but do not perform abortions. These centers also vastly outnumber Planned Parenthood locations.
Planned Parenthood’s nauseating PR efforts have the organization inserting itself into pop culture, calling itself “the resistance” and touting celebrity support. Planned Parenthood’s PR machine is also working to hold on to the organization’s political clout, claiming that they hold the public’s support. As Live Action News reported in December, Planned Parenthood had been touting an October Politico poll which found 48 percent of Trump supporters were against defunding the abortion giant. The number is just barely a plurality, with 47 percent in favor of defunding. However, at issue is the biased wording in the poll’s question: “Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides family planning and preventative health services. In addition, it provides some abortion services…. Do you support or oppose ending ALL federal funding to Planned Parenthood because they provide some abortion services?,” the question asked, with original emphasis. Clearly, this question is leading, and presents abortion as a small part of Planned Parenthood’s business (a claim which is false). It also makes efforts to present Planned Parenthood in the best light possible.
Pro-abortion surveys are often problematic for several reasons, as has been highlighted before.
One survey, conducted from April 26-27 and surveying 7,488 registered voters, is explained by Jessie Hellmann for the Hill. It reports that a majority of voters in 13 GOP districts are opposed to defunding Planned Parenthood. (In case we’re expected to find this important, there are 241 Republicans in office for the U.S. House of Representatives, a lot more than these 13 representatives.) It should also be noted that these swing districts voted for Hillary Clinton, a pro-abortion candidate who was not only endorsed by Planned Parenthood, but has also received multiple awards from them.
But pro-lifers can conduct their own polls, too. The Susan B. Anthony List released a poll earlier this year finding that voters in several key states up for the 2018 Senate race favored defunding Planned Parenthood and rerouting the to FQHCs. As Frank Cannon also mentioned for the Hill, a Roger Morris University December 2015 poll, which received little mainstream media coverage, found that most voters approve of defunding Planned Parenthood, and instead sending taxpayer funding to FQHCs.
Our pro-life legislators and president must realize that now is the time to defund the nation’s largest abortion.
