Although President Barack Obama repeatedly refused to allow any provisions de-funding Planned Parenthood and rebuffed Speaker John Boehner’s efforts to do so, one conservative writer hopes Boehner will try again.
Terry Jeffrey, the publisher of the conservative news web site CNS News, is out with a column today at Town Hall urging Boehner to try again. He wants the pro-life House Speaker to exercise the rights of the House of Representatives to take the lead on spending and government funding issues.
“But will the Republican-majority House, led by Boehner, exercise that authority when it enacts the bills to keep the government running after Sept. 30?” he asks.
Jeffrey lays out the case against Planned Parenthood funding, saying it is the nation’s biggest abortion business and doesn’t need federal taxpayer funds.
“In 2009, according to a fact sheet Planned Parenthood posted on its website, the group aborted 332,278 babies,” he writes. “Had Planned Parenthood’s abortionists worked seven days a week for all 12 months of the year, they would have needed to slice and suction 910 babies every day to amass that death count. Had Planned Parenthood’s abortionists worked 24 hours a day on every one of the 365 days in the year — including Christmas, Easter and the Fourth of July — they would have needed to terminate about 38 babies per hour to kill 332,278 in a year. That’s one dead baby every 95 seconds.”
Jeffrey argues that Planned Parenthood makes plenty of money and doesn’t need to feed from the government dole.
“In its organizational fiscal year that ended June 30, 2009, Planned Parenthood took in $1.1 billion in total revenue, according to its most recent annual report. Of that $1.1 billion, $363.2 million came from government grants and contracts,” he notes. “In February, Planned Parenthood spokesman Tait Sye told Bloomberg Businessweek that 90 percent of this $363 million came directly from the federal government or from Medicaid, a federal-state program. That means Planned Parenthood received about $326.7 million from the federal government and Medicaid in 2009, a year it averaged 910 abortions per day.”
When the House voted last time, in February, on whether or not to de-fund Planned Parnehtood, a bipartisan group of lawmakers approved the amendment Rep. Mike Pence sponsored on a 240-185 vote — showing clear support for de-funding. However, Senate Democrats rejected the amendment after Obama made it clear he would have no part of legislation funding the federal government that took out Planned Parenthood funding.
But Jeffrey insists that Republicans give it another shot and attempt to win the vote in the Senate.
“Every additional dollar paid to Planned Parenthood will be borrowed money that future generations will need to pay off — the very generations Planned Parenthood is working to abort,” he says. “If Boehner takes a stand against Planned Parenthood funding, he will spark a certain-to-be-ferocious national debate in which the liberal media will use all their firepower to defend Obama and the abortionists.”
