John Thompson
Republican Party of Iowa
State Central Committee Member
Last Saturday, the Republican Party Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee passed a resolution to cease all funding for Planned Parenthood. The organization has long claimed to receive no public subsidies to provide abortions. They claim that all the taxpayer dollars are spent for operational costs, administration overhead, buildings and other medical services. The doctor’s hours and abortion instruments are paid for with private donations.
The argument that public funding does not pay for abortions is a farce. It is analogous to saying “the federal government didn’t pay for my trip because I bought my own gas. The federal government only paid for the car.”
The Center for Medical Progress continues to release undercover videos of Planned Parenthood discussing the vivisection and sale of fetal organs. Apologists’ claims that they are “heavily edited” are also a complete farce. CMP releases the unedited, hours-long footage of the videos along with the pulp-ready shorter version. And the same people that claim they have been “debunked” refuse to watch even the short version. I can empathize with this type of defense of Planned Parenthood. There is a difference in values between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice individuals. Pro-Choice folks do not want to acknowledge that abortions are killing babies. If they have to see organs being removed from a tiny corpse it is harder for them to cope with their world view that the little baby on the stainless steal mat is not a person.
The argument that Planned Parenthood provides other necessary services besides anonymous abortions is also a farce. The majority of all the other services they offer are more prolific and available at other clinics. The only thing Planned Parenthood offers that cannot be accomplished elsewhere is abortion with no accountability to parents, fathers or even the individuals own finances.
But my vote on this resolution was also a farce. I fully support the total defunding of Planned Parenthood. I was outraged by the CMP videos but I was outraged by the taxpayer subsidized deaths prior to learning Planned Parenthood was making money selling baby parts. It was no secret that they were killing millions of babies. It was no secret that many low-income and minority young women were disproportionally suffering from this organization.
However, passing a resolution or defunding Planned Parenthood is a band-aid on a much greater problem. Conservatives should also seek out other public policies that encourage life. The current cost of adoption in the United States is between $20,000-$40,000. There are many willing and would-be terrific parents that cannot afford this stiff fee which does not even guarantee them a child. This would be a much better place to spend the half a billion dollars that the Federal Government gives to Planned Parenthood.
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