Friday, April 8, 2011

A Decisive Moment for Life


A Decisive Moment for Life
By Hugh Hewitt
4/8/2011

I will speak tonight in Phoenix at the Arizona Right to Life dinner.

Though planned months ago, the fund raiser is occurring even as the most important debate on abortion policy in years plays out in the United States Congress.

The dinner raises money for pro-life activities in Arizona, and this year the honoree is Arizona's wonderful United States Senator Jon Kyl, long a champion of the rights of the unborn.

I suspect the senator and most of the Arizona delegation will miss the event because of the budget gridlock, and because the enormous importance of the debates within the debate. Kyl and his colleagues have been long time, consistent champions of the pro-life cause and hopefully they will help keep the Beltway GOP focused on the stakes in this battle even as the president, Joe Biden and Harry Reid triple-team the GOP's leader in the White House talks.

There has long been a strong consensus in America that taxpayer dollars should not be spent on abortion. Most Democrats have always paid lip service to this ideal, which is supported by super-majorities of Americans.

The debate over Obamacare's provisions last year revealed the true agenda of the left, however, and many so-called pro-life Democrats like Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak tossed aside their professed allegiance to life to curry favor with the president. Many believe that the intense anger at such a transparent sell-out led to Stupak's decision not to seek re-election and to the end of the ruse of there remaining any serious pro-life Democrats. The example of the ruin of Stupak's career and his reputation should be front and center for any Republican urging the Speaker to give up the effort to end the subsidy of abortion.

More than $350 million in tax dollars flows to Planned Parenthood every year, and Planned Parenthood superintends more than 300,000 abortions annually. The organization and its propagandists in and outside of the MSM argue that the tax subsidy goes to non-abortion services, but the argument fails to persuade because it is so patently absurd. The major business of Planned Parenthood is abortion, and the federal treasury subsidizes the organization to the tune of a third of its budget. This must end.

The new majority in the House voted to do just that, and the "Pence Amendment," named for its sponsor Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, passed with an overwhelming margin of 240 to 185 in February.

Now the president and Harry Reid are insisting that they will shut the federal government down rather than end the abortion subsidy.

The Commander-in-Chief and his allies in the Senate are willing to even suspend the pay of all the military to keep the abortion subsidy flowing.

It looks increasingly as though the president will sacrifice everything else in the negotiation except the Planned parenthood pay day.

There is great clarity in this moment, clarity about the president's and his party's fanatical devotion to abortion, even in the face of a shut down that is wildly unpopular and even at the expense of the military that is as esteemed as Planned Parenthood is not.

Call the Congressional switchboard at 202-225-3121 and urge your representative and senators to end this subsidy. And send a message to Speaker Boehner thanking him for refusing to sacrifice the rights of the unborn for the approval of the Manhattan-Beltway media elite.

1 comment:

Brett said...

What's so cool about this battle is the Democrats usually try to keep their rampant support for killing babies on the downlow. This budget battle is bringing it front and center for everyone to see. Of course the Democrats never mention the huge elephant in the room - taxpayer funding for murdering millions of babies, but we can keep pointing it out to them, repeatedly.