In what will probably amount to nothing more than a political statement, the House of Representatives voted to freeze federal funding to Planned Parenthood:
In a 241-187 vote, nearly all Republicans and two Democrats approved legislation that would block Planned Parenthood’s federal funding for one year, giving time for Congress to fully investigate claims of wrongdoing by the provider.
Lawmakers also passed a bill tightening restrictions on abortion doctors who violate infant protections in a 248-177 vote.
“What we’ve learned about Planned Parenthood is appalling, barbaric and indefensible,” Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Pa.) said.
The Senate will likely crush this, and everything will continue on as usual. In the meantime, leftists are soiling their pants with rage over the whole thing. “How dare 200 men tell women what they are or are not allowed to do with their bodies?” Yeah. That’s what this is about, for sure. Republicans just want to control women. It has nothing to do with the fact that Planned Parenthood is butchering babies and selling off their body parts to the highest bidder.
I get so tired of this. Laws are, generally speaking, all about controlling what a person can or cannot do with his or her body. You have to wear a seatbelt for instance. You aren’t allowed to do drugs. You’re not allowed to kill people. All of these laws directly concern how and what you may do to and with your own body. No one seems overly concerned about these laws.
But as soon as you start talking about abortion, people get extremely vehement about the legal inviolability of a woman’s rights over her own body. Nope. Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. And in this case, the problem comes down to a vicious disagreement about definitions.
An unborn baby might be inside a woman’s body, but that baby’s tissue is not hers. If it were ever the case that the baby’s tissue were actually nothing more than the woman’s tissue, then it would always have to be the case. Unless being born includes some drastic transformation in the actual genetics of a child. Conversely, if the baby’s tissue is ever just the baby’s, than it must always be just the baby’s. Meaning, if that tissue belongs to a distinct person from the mother upon birth, then that tissue belongs to a distinct person before birth.
How else can you really think about it? Is birth some kind of mystical sacrament wherein clumps of the woman’s tissue transubstantiate into a completely other person? Are there words of institution necessary? Does a C-section fall within Planned Parenthood’s orthodox parameters of the Holy Rites of childbirth, or is it the case that all children born from C-section are actually still just clumps of their mother’s cells? In that case, is it okay for a mother to kill a grown child born from C-section? Does anyone else not see how stupid this whole argument is?
Beyond that, it would be great if people who “stand with Planned Parenthood” would stop talking about federal funding to Planned Parenthood as if it is the same as food stamps. It’s not. There is one crucial difference: Planned Parenthood gets federal funding directly so that it can provide “women’s healthcare.” Have you ever heard of a grocery store getting federal funding directly so it could provide free food to the needy? No. Food stamps don’t work like that. Food stamps go directly to the needy person. And those needy people can use them basically anywhere. So what would happen if the civil government gave “healthcare stamps” to needy women? They’d probably go somewhere other than Planned Parenthood. And apparently that’s not acceptable.
Why? Why does Planned Parenthood have a virtual monopoly on federal funding for women’s healthcare? I’ll tell you why. Because they also provide abortions, and they discourage people from having children. And the civil government has a vested interest in reducing the number of children born to its poorer citizens. Margaret Sanger was pretty clear about this from the beginning. And Planned Parenthood hasn’t changed its operating philosophy or its tactics. It has only changed its public persona. And, as the kneejerk defense of its existence should have already made clear, Planned Parenthood has done a very good job of convincing people that its intentions are innocent and socially magnanimous. They’re not.
Terminating the life of an innocent, autonomous human being is murder. The case cannot be made that an unborn baby is anything other than an innocent, autonomous human being. Therefore, Planned Parenthood is little more than a murder mill. It needs to be destroyed.