Talking Pro-Life vs. Being Pro-Life: Planned Parenthood, the GOP and the Midterms

Many people claim to be pro-life but not nearly as many act on their pro-life convictions. Election season is a great time to confront this hard truth.

For years, our tax dollars have been flowing into the coffers of Planned Parenthood, to the tune of $500 million a year.

Federal law prohibits direct public funding for abortion, only allowing government money to go to contraceptive and counseling services, which Planned Parenthood also offers. But it is our tax dollars keeping these abortion mills alive.

Money is a fungible commodity. Giving Planned Parenthood $500 million a year and then claiming our tax dollars don’t fund abortion is like giving an alcoholic $50 and then claiming he bought that liquor with his own money.

But that’s not all. Our tax dollars also promote abortion. According to a new report from Live Action, just in this midterm election alone Planned Parenthood has poured about $20 million dollars into the political campaigns of pro-abortion politicians, all of which are, of course, Democrats.

Let that sink in: Your tax dollars go to an organization that makes millions more from killing innocents and then gives money back to the one political party committed to expanding their evil business.

But let’s be clear about the Republicans, too. For the past two years, the GOP controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. Many campaigned on the promise of defunding Planned Parenthood. Yet, even after video evidence revealing the organization harvests and sells the body parts of aborted babies, half a billion dollars still flows to the nation’s largest abortion provider. The latest short-term spending bill was just signed by President Trump in September.

Of course, there’s an excuse. Republican lawmakers didn’t want a standoff with Democrats leading to another government shutdown on the eve of Tuesday’s midterm elections. I recently talked with a congressman who campaigned in 2016 promising to defund Planned Parenthood, but voted for the budget, again, with the funding included. He gave that excuse, as well as the military needs its funding. I get this isn’t easy. Still, frankly, there’s always a promise which is always followed by an excuse, no matter how much political power pro-life voters give Republicans. So, please, either stop promising or follow through.

I certainly recognize that Republican lawmakers have taken other steps to curb the killing of unborn children, but almost none of it comes from Congress. The Trump administration has filled the courts, including the Supreme Court, with pro-life judges. That’s huge. And state-level legislative work – enacting parental notification, ultrasound laws, and late-term limits – has been incredibly effective in reducing the number of abortions and closing clinics nationwide.

Still, pro-life voters should be forgiven for concluding that the Republican congressional candidates use the abortion issue like a carrot on a stick to earn votes every other November, only to bankroll abortion come January. Many of us consistently vote in large part to end this madness. Despite having majorities in both houses and a Republican president in the White House, Planned Parenthood is still getting our tax dollars.

That’s because it’s one thing to claim to be pro-life, but it’s another to actually live out those convictions. While I’ve focused my criticism so far on congressional Republicans, they are far from the only guilty ones.

Tomorrow, many who claim to be pro-life will fail to vote, again. Many of us, who live in the time in which there is the greatest pro-life momentum and the greatest chance to see the great evil of surgical abortion pushed back politically since Roe v. Wade, will fail to take the time to cast our ballots. We will ignore the local, state and federal races that hold such incredible gravity for the unborn.

Because many of us, like the congressional Republicans we might critique, are pro-life in word, but not in deed.

BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.

John Stonestreet, the host of The Point, a daily national radio program, provides thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

Publication date: November 5, 2018

Photo courtesy: Julie Johnson/Unsplash