Planned Parenthood may have won the first leg of the race on Thursday when members of the Senate defeated a House-passed measure to yank taxpayer funds from the abortion business. But pro-life groups vow there are still miles to go.
The battle for leading groups and lawmakers is important because, now matter how hard the abortion business tries to hide the main sources of its income and the main mission it has, as Rep. Jean Schmidt, an Ohio Republican, told her colleagues yesterday, “For every 33 pregnant women who walk into a Planned Parenthood, 32 receive an abortion.”
Rep. Mike Pence, the pro-life Republican who led the fight to de-fund Planned Parenthood most of the year, added, “Planned Parenthood received $1 million a day and performed about 1,000 abortions a day."
For pro-life leaders like Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, the vote is the start of the next leg of the race — defeating lawmakers who voted to fund Planned Parenthood and to recapture the Senate and the White House in 2012 so a de-funding measure can be approved and signed into law.
“Today’s vote was historic because for the first time the Senate was forced to go on record over whether they support using Americans’ tax dollars to support the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, a bloated, scandal-ridden abortion advocate,” Yoest said. “But today’s vote made clear which senators care more about the interests of the politically influential abortion lobby than the lives and safety of American women and families.”
“Recent polls reveal that an overwhelming majority of Americans—whether pro-life or pro-abortion—oppose the use of federal monies to support abortion,” Yoest added. “;In 2009, Planned Parenthood reported performing 332,278 abortions, 8,270 more abortions than it performed in 2008. Planned Parenthood is expanding the reach of its abortion business by dispensing the abortion drug RU-486 via Skype, in violation of the Food and Drug Administration’s protocol, and circumventing state laws designed to protect women. Planned Parenthood itself has recently made plain the centrality of abortion to its mission, mandating that every Planned Parenthood affiliate have at least one clinic performing abortion within the next two years. The American people do not want to be in business with Planned Parenthood.”
Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, said his group is not giving up.
“Unfortunately, it is clear that the pro-abortion majority in the Senate continues to show they are more loyal to Planned Parenthood than they are to protecting taxpayers from paying for big-abortion,” he told LifeNews. “Reps. Diane Black and Martha Roby deserve our respect and thanks for successfully guiding their resolution to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider through the House.”
To make progress on de-funding Planned Parenthood, pro-life groups will need to focus on these top 10 Senate races to allow for a switch in control of the chamber from Democrat to Republican. That would allow Congress to approve a budget bill cutting some or all Planned Parenthood funding and either forcing President Obama to sign the bill to shut down the government or — if a pro-life president is in place — de-funding will take place.
The Susan B. Anthony List has started an advertising campaign against three of the Democrats voting for Planned Parenthood funding.
