Why defunding Planned Parenthood is a distraction from the real fight
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But just a few months after that proclamation of victory, Planned Parenthood Michigan announced that it would expand virtual appointments to “seven days a week, including weekends, morning, and evening appointments.” The organization also reported “growing demand” for the virtual appointments, leading it to “expand the program even further.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has also called the defunding of Planned Parenthood this year the “biggest national pro-life victory” since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The organization has repeatedly highlighted the closure of individual abortion clinics as evidence that “the lives of moms and babies are being protected.”
In its public statements about the move, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America insisted that Planned Parenthood closures are evidence that “life is winning.” The organization failed to include the context that abortion rates across the nation are still on the rise.
In other words, the closure of physical abortion clinics does not necessarily mean fewer babies murdered. But pro-life groups celebrating as if that were the case are sorrowfully leading anti-abortion people to think otherwise.
Exaggerated impact
Planned Parenthood facilitates about one-third of all abortions in America. But even if it lost access to taxpayer dollars, the same number of abortions in our nation would almost certainly continue.
If the federal government were to cut off all funds to Planned Parenthood, the organization would find money elsewhere — from blue-state legislatures, from private billionaire donors, and most of all from the men and women who themselves fund Planned Parenthood by paying to murder their own pre-born babies.
Also, taxpayer money does not cause the abortion holocaust in our nation, but it subsidizes an already existing marketplace that will continue even if Planned Parenthood disappears tomorrow.
In other words, as long as there is abortion demand, there will be some form of abortion supply. We must address both the supply and demand for abortions, or else the murder of pre-born babies will continue.
The real priority
By prioritizing a weak objective of defunding Planned Parenthood, pro-life groups might achieve exactly that goal, but they will not get more than that goal any time soon. In order even to substantially decrease abortion in America, let alone actually abolish abortion, a much more ambitious goal must be set.
That is why every anti-abortion leader and organization should support legislation enacting equal protection of the laws for pre-born babies, which would not only break the power of abortion providers, but truly abolish abortion itself.
Christian conservatives rightly affirm that pre-born babies are made in the image of God and should be protected from the moment of fertilization. By calling for equal protection bills at the state and federal levels, anti-abortion groups would be setting the expectation that the exact same laws protecting born people from murder should protect pre-born people as well.
The focus should remain on establishing equal protection. This is the only policy that would criminalize abortion as murder for all parties involved, obey God, and dramatically reduce the number of murders of pre-born babies in America.
If such an expectation is set, then state and federal lawmakers may still defund Planned Parenthood — probably even faster than they otherwise would have. But setting a lower expectation than equal protection, such as defunding Planned Parenthood, decreases the likelihood of strong anti-abortion policies advancing.
The pro-life organizations searching for a new priority after the overturn of Roe should not set their sights too low, and they most certainly should not exaggerate their victories.
If they truly desire to protect pre-born babies and move America toward the abolition of abortion, merely defunding Planned Parenthood will not suffice. They must remember that we are in a holocaust that has continued for far too long — and act with the appropriate urgency and priority.
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