Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Defunding Planned Parenthood Egregiously Misses the Mark

[The following article is authored by Abolitionist, Clayton Strang]

It's difficult, one might even say foolish, to argue that giving money, even taxpayer money, to Planned Parenthood is a good thing to do. After all, Planned Parenthood is the largest perpetrator of pre-born murder in the United States of America. If we ask ourselves the question "it is better for Planned Parenthood to receive taxpayer money or is it better for them to not receive taxpayer money" the answer should seem quite apparent to all believers. Of course it is better for Planned Parenthood to not be receiving funds of any kind, including that of public funding using Federal Reserve notes collected from taxpayers. So, is it proper to cut off public funding to Planned Parenthood? It seems as though this should warrant a relatively straightforward answer of "yes."

As a recent post on this blog so effectively reminded us, cutting off taxpayer funding does not mean that individual taxpayers are guiltless regarding the holocaust of abortion. It is not enough to simply not be financially contributing to murder; one has the obligation to actively work against it. If you know that your neighbors are being murdered, can you pretend that you are guiltless simply because you haven’t financed that murder? If you know it happens and if you fail to attempt to rescue the intended victim, if you fail to raise your voice in their behalf, you have acted to allow an injustice to be perpetrated against your neighbor. As with many other things, our motives for defunding Planned Parenthood are very much a matter of great importance.

With all of the so called scandal going on right now surrounding the allegations that Planned Parenthood makes money off of the sale of its murder victims' organs, we see a renewed and very visible push by politicians to cut off funding from Planned Parenthood. As we are entering into campaign season it certainly is right to question the motives of politicians whatsoever they do, even if it's something seemingly as "commonsense" as cutting off funding to an abortion provider. This may be called cynical by some; however I think we are forced to question the motives of these pro-life politicians. Do they want to cut off this public funding in order to affect some great good? Are they attempting to be good stewards of the money that we dutifully pay by eliminating wasteful spending? That certainly would be a good thing to do. There are all manner of things that our elected officials waste money on, and Planned Parenthood isn't even one of the larger ones. Or, more likely, do they wish to score political points and reinforce their pro-life bona fides by putting forward defunding bills?

I feel as though we must ask these questions because when it gets right down to it, removing the small amount of funding that Planned Parenthood gets from the federal government will not work in any way to affect the abolition of human abortion.

All of that said we are still left with the original question: should Planned Parenthood be a recipient of taxpayer money? If one is thinking rightly, one must answer "no." Therefore, the answer to the question, "Is it proper for our government to stop giving taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood?" must be answered "yes." That "yes" must, however, come with a proviso or two. Any attempt to cut off funding must not be cloaked with the language of or expectation that abolition will be a direct result of defunding. Any legislation introduced and passed must not contain ageist or any other exception (e.g., funding for abortion in the case of rape or incest as is currently provided in the Hyde Amendment). Any legislative attempt to defund Planned Parenthood should not necessarily be dismissed by the abolitionist, nor should it warrant any special attention that would distract from the work of abolition. So, too, the abolition minded legislator ought not to spend more time fighting to defund Planned Parenthood that he does drafting, introducing and building support for legislation to fully and immediately enact the abolition of human abortion.

The issue is a matter of goals and aims. If more and more of our limited resources are dedicated to the push for defunding, the less that abolition is at the forefront of our minds. If we are solely focusing on defunding and not abolition, we will never attain abolition. However, if we focus on abolition, we would certainly also attain defunding.