The President of the United States says if Republicans don’t send him a budget he can sign, “they’ll shut down the government for the second time in two years.” The LA Times pleads, “GOP, spare us another foolish government shutdown.” Business Insider’s Brett LoGiurato writes, “A lot of Republicans want to shut down the government over 10 ‘undercover’ videos.” The Huffington Post’s Laura Bassett “reports” that “28 Republican Men Threaten Government Shutdown Over Planned Parenthood.”
The narrative is decided: if Planned Parenthood’s money isn’t in the budget resolution Congress sends Barack Obama by the end of the month, and if Obama vetoes it, pro-lifers will have shut down the federal government—never mind the pro-abortion chief executive who will have literally had the appropriation necessary to keep the government open sitting on his desk right in front of him, yet chose not to sign it.
As Ted Cruz said in Iowa this week, that’s nonsense:
President Obama has said he will veto funding for the entire federal government unless $500 million goes to this private organization […] That is a radical and extreme proposition […] If Congress funds the entire government and the president vetoes that funding, it isn’t complicated who is shutting down the government. It is the person vetoing it.
We know that’s the case because we already saw this movie in 2013. We saw the House of Representatives repeatedly send Obama and Harry Reid full funding for federal operations as well as specific functions feared to be affected. (For the record, entitlement spending and funds already appropriated would be largely unaffected).
Indeed, despite professing the importance of continuing government operations and the “critical investments needed to support national security and sustain economic growth,” Obama has threatened to veto appropriations if they defund Planned Parenthood because the defunding provision would “advance a narrow ideological agenda” — as if subsidizing Planned Parenthood, or vetoing everything else on behalf of their money, doesn’t.
So if the GOP doesn’t back down and if Democrat senators do not join the vote to override Obama’s veto, and a shutdown happens, let’s be perfectly clear about why.
If food stamps are suspended, it will be because Barack Obama and his allies think further lining the pockets of an organization that gets over $775 million in private revenue a year takes precedence over their own favored means of feeding the poor.
If WIC subsidies dry up, it will be because Obama and company consider abortion more important to low-income women than food and nutrition—a de facto admission that abortion is pretty much all they mean when they say “women’s health.”
If the National Guard goes without pay, it will be because Obama and company prioritize the “right” the Supreme Court invented above the actual rights our armed servicemen defend.
If the National Institute of Health has to temporarily stop researching for cures, it will be because Obama and company find Planned Parenthood’s “research” conducted on a foundation of murdered children and broken medical-ethics laws more deserving.
If national parks and landmarks close down, it will be because Obama and company think Americans’ local Planned Parenthood clinic a more worthwhile visit than sites of their nation’s history or natural beauty.
If these and hundreds of other government services and programs get interrupted by a government shutdown, it will be because a pro-abortion president and the pro-abortion contingent in Congress ultimately concluded that they were an acceptable price to pay for an organization that murders babies, lies to women, ignores girls’ abuse, preaches destructive behavior to children, breaks consent and safety laws, and defrauds Medicaid. All necessary sacrifices on the altar of abortion-on-demand.
They won’t admit any of it, of course. They might not even consciously think it. But these are precisely the messages their stance sends. What other conclusion is there? Planned Parenthood makes more than enough money to get by on their own. There are more than enough legitimate health centers to provide care for women (not to mention that Planned Parenthood could choose to spend more of their own money on real care instead of abortion).
In short, if Planned Parenthood’s federal funding doesn’t serve a credible national interest in the first place, it certainly can’t be so vital as to outweigh everything else our tax dollars support. What sets it apart is abortion.
In the absence of some other substantial or irreplaceable public good, it follows that Obama and the Democrats are willfully holding everything from the poor and cancer research to National Guardsmen and federal workers’ paychecks hostage to abortion. Whether due to financial dependence on the abortion lobby or a hardening, intensifying ideology, abortion really is that far above everything else in their political values.
