Pro-Life Advocates Upset Democrats Stuff Pro-Abortion Funding in Iraq Bill
RSS Newsfeed 
Email article
Printer friendly
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 22, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Congressional Democrats are coming under criticism from pro-life advocates who say they are wrong to insert funding for Planned Parenthood into the Iraq war supplemental bill. They say handing over taxpayer dollars to the nation’s largest abortion business has nothing to do with supporting the troops overseas.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is being accused of fattening up the legislation with controversial earmarks such as the Planned Parenthood funding and jeopardizing the timetable for the bill’s passage.
Reid “has a funny way of expressing his appreciation for our troops this Memorial Day” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins told LifeNews.com on Wednesday.
“Rather than honoring our soldiers with the funding they need, the Senate is stuffing the war supplemental bill with pro-abortion paybacks for groups like Planned Parenthood,” he said. “Despite the urgent needs of our servicemen, Reid and his liberal allies are more concerned about funding the war against the unborn than the war in Iraq.”
A provision in the legislation would help Planned Parenthood and family planning businesses buy birth control and the Plan B drug at a discount.
Perkins said that would become a cash cow for university health centers and Planned Parenthood facilities who can turn a profit from selling the morning after pill even though they make significant funding on the markup from the drugs previously.
“So the $165 billion question is: What does any of this have to do with Iraq? Absolutely nothing,” he said. “Reid’s personal political agenda is exposing our active-duty troops to new risks as they wait on Congress to duke out the abortion provisions.”
Meanwhile, the editors at National Review also joined in the condemnation.
“As U.S.-led Coalition forces closed in on an al-Qaeda leader in Samarra on Tuesday, Harry Reid was running a special operation of his own: figuring out how to shoehorn a sop to Planned Parenthood into the bill to fund our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,” they complained.
“We should be able to fund our troops in the field without paying billions of dollars in ransom to Congress’s pet projects,” they said.
“Harry Reid should send the president a war-funding bill that actually funds the war — as opposed to one that funds domestic pressure groups — and should do so before Memorial Day,” they conclude. “If he wants to have a legislative fight over Planned Parenthood, there’s a time for that. This isn’t it.”
Correction: Original version read that the editors at National Right to Life made the comments above. Corrected to read National Review.
