Budget Deal Victory for Tea Party Conservatives, Blow to Pro-Lifers

In 2004 or 2005, President Bush was serving his second term and I had begun to wonder who the Republicans would run in the next election. I didn’t see any likely candidates on the horizon, so I asked Dr. Blanchard, who was teaching several of my classes that semester. He prophetically guessed that John McCain would be the Republican nominee, much to my disappointment.

Life was (and still is) my first consideration when voting and unborn babies are particularly close to my heart. They were before I was a mother and are even more so, now that I have had the good fortune of having two children. Once, I believed that it might be easy for women to convince themselves that babies were blobs. Now, I think it must be very hard not to suspect that the flipping, kicking child who responds to his father's voice more than to any other sound might be just a mass of tissue. But I am getting off topic here.

John McCain had spoken out against repealing Roe v Wade, and was not as firmly pro-life as I would have liked him to be. So I objected to the idea, but Dr. Blanchard argued that abortion wasn’t really an issue anymore. This, he clarified, was not because it wasn’t important, but because Congress was unlikely to pass an abortion ban. I objected to this at the time, but I had to admit that he was probably right.

This year, for a brief moment, abortion was an issue in Congress. The government’s entire budget hung on Congress’s decision to either fund or defund Planned Parenthood. I had a feeling that the Republicans would be the ones to back down. It is one thing they are tremendously good at. They lived up to my expectations. And, with the Democrats refusing to send military personnel their paychecks, its hard not to think the Republicans were right to compromise. Still, I was holding out a bit of hope and I will confess that my heart sank a little as the deal that allowed Planned Parenthood to keep its funding was announced.  In a way, it seemed like the Republicans had sold unborn babies down the river. On the other hand, abortions would have continued, whether or not Planned Parenthood kept its funding. Nevertheless, the decision is a blow to pro-life conservatives.

On the other hand, it is a marked victory for Tea Party conservatives. President Obama announced this evening that the deal would bring about the largest budget cut in history. Of course, part of that is because Congress is dealing with one of the biggest budgets in history. Still, this is an accomplishment to be proud of. I am giving most of the credit to conservatives. Democrats, as Dr. Blanchard has noted on this blog, came to the table with nothing. Nor were they willing to compromise on the issue of Planned Parenthood. Many argued that the budget stalemate was due to the politics surrounding the abortion debate. If so, the Democrats proved unwilling to put politics aside, while the Republicans showed themselves willing to compromise on a very tough issue. I hope that compromise proves wise.

Comments

[James]

Personally, I do not see this as a blow to pro-lifers. With the new budget, the abortion issue has not moved to the right or the left. Planned Parenthood was funded in the old budget and it will continue to be funded in the new. To me, this maintains the status quo rather than taking a step back.

Frankly, this was the wrong time for Republicans to fight the abortion issue which is why they had to remove it from the budget. We are slowly recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression. Shutting down the government would disrupt the cash flow for millions of Americans at a time when we still have record high levels of unemployment.

I understand that people feel passionately about the abortion issue and I respect their opinion; however, 300+ million Americans *need* our economy to recover. Shutting down the government at this time would not only put jeopardize stability for everyone in the U.S., it could potentially trigger a global retreat from economic recovery. Now, we are talking billions of people.

It's very admirable to defend unborn babies especially given the fact they cannot defend themselves. On the other hand, we have to take care of people (including children) who are living now. If we shut down the government because we do not want to fund Planned Parenthood and millions of children worldwide become homeless and/or go hungry because we trigger a global economic meltdown, we haven't accomplished much in my opinion.

[Miranda]

James: Thank you for your comments. As I note above, I do think this was the right decision. On the other hand, suppose we were talking about ending genocide or slavery. Is there really a wrong time to fight against these things? In my book, there really isn't. I'd use every occasion I could to fight against a second Holocaust. For those who truly believe that unborn babies have a right to life, the issue isn't really very different.

The last part of your argument, where you argue that a global meltdown could cause others to suffer or die is more compelling. I considered similar arguments when deciding to come out in favor of the compromise.

[Tom]

But the Planned Parenthood money Republicans have been trying to eliminate has nothing to do with abortion. The Hyde Amendment already prevents federal money from going to abortions so PP has other sources of revenue for that. The current federal money going to PP is for its other services like cancer screenings and giving women birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies (which might end up as abortions).

[Dvora OCDS]

Miranda, thanks for expressing your perspective on the budget deal. When I saw and heard the news on TV, esp. the President's brief address during the late local news on 4/8/11 - "women's health care is important" and should be haggled over at another time - my heart sunk. The Republican caucus had caved, not compromised. Of course Democrat observers might say the same about the so-called deal. So once again, grass roots efforts to prevent abortion are the principal means we have at this time. But ultimately, the choice to abort the baby happens one mom at a time. That's pretty grass roots... yet, I pray that our pro-life legislators will *not* let our pro-life cause languish on some legislative back burner.

By the way, Google listed your blog at the top of the latest search results for "pro-life blog budget deal". Good work, everyone!

[Miranda]

Tom: You are right if you only look at the issue on its surface. But the money goes to the same organization and the same providers. Suppose I'm a doctor who works for Planned Parenthood. I would like the government to pay for the abortion I'm about to provide, but I know that federal funds can't be used for the procedure. What can I do? Well, I know that the government WILL pay for other services. So I use the money the government provides for those services and I use the money I would have used to provide things like cervical cancer screenings to pay for the cost of the abortion. Federal Funds may not be used to fund abortions directly, but they do make it easier for Planned Parenthood to provide them.

Dvora: Thank you very much for your input. It is always nice to hear from a fellow pro-lifer!

[Mike]

Miranda,

I appreciate your post. Abortion is an unmitigated evil. It corrupts whatever it touches. It has corrupted the Democratic party (can you say Bart Stupak) and a portion of the Republican party. I would rather the country go deeper in debt than kill one more innocent baby. I fear God's judgment awaits.

That said, I am still encouraged. If I read the news right, Washington DC will no longer have taxpayer funded abortions. I think the Republicans will not nominate
someone unless they are strongly pro life. And I think the funding of Planned Parenthood issue will be back.

Mike

[Miranda]

Mike,

Thank you for your response. I am not as confident as you that the Republicans will choose a strong pro-life candiate in the next election. If it came down to a choice between someone like Christine O'Donnell and someone like Giuliani, Giuliani would probably win. Still, I hope you're right.

[Laurie Hemmer]

I saw compromise by the Democrats,and none with the Republicans. I guess it is also on party lines what one feels about who won or lost her. Something you have to remember is the Bush administration got us to the mess in the first place and now all of the sudden after they created the biggest deficit in US history, they change their tunes and call for cuts. Where were the Republicans when Bush took us into a country we had not buis going into in the first place and all the debt that war for nothing cost this country in lives lost and huge debt. We were not even attacked from this country and then we go to a totally diff country rather thank going to the place that housed those who did attack on 911? No wmd's and many who worked for that administration now coming forward and saying why they left because they were selling us a bunch of hooey! Bottom line is the Republicans have hated this president and not wanted to work with him from day one out of being sore losers. They have been the party of No even when they proposed things in the first place. It has happened different times where Obama says yes to one of those proposals and because he said yes then they say No, so there is nothing they will compromise or work with him on and Idependants and even some republicans other than the Tea party are getting good and sick of it. ALl you have to do is look at the polls. Planned parenthood is not just for abortions none of which are funded by the Gov by the way in the first place, and the Reps want to take basic health care from woman who need it and cannot afford it so they just scorned the American woman and they will not be forgetting in 2012. All we out here have seen is Obama trying with the utmost class to compromise and work with the party of No about anything and everything and most all of the American people see it, so watch out in 2012, people are not going to forget the cuts that this party wants to do with social programs that effect most of the majorities in the US, too many to mention here. Reps are not the ones who tried to compromise anything.

[Miranda]

Laurie: Thank you for taking the time to write such a thorough response.

I agree with you that the Republicans bear much of the blame for the current mess. They did not behave like conservatives under Bush, hence the rise of the Tea Party. However, I would also remind you that Clinton had a Republican congress that should get much of the credit for balancing the budget. Indeed, the Republicans rejected Clinton's budget proposals several times before a deal was reached. The Democrats who, (The Republicans controlled both the house and senate during 6 of Clinton's 8 years in office).

Meanwhile, the Democrats share a lot of the blame for the current mess. They controlled the senate for half of Bush's time in office and the house for two years. During that time, they continually pushed for more spending. They continued to do so, even after taking control of the presidency and both houses of congress.

Now, you scold the Republicans for creating a deficit and then changing their tune and calling for cuts. But I say this is better than continuing to spend. When someone is wrong, one would hope they would change. The fact that the Republicans are capable of change and have at least been trying to fix the mess we're in gives me a bit more faith in them than I have in the Democrats. Do you have any reason to believe that the Democrats had a better spending plan in mind?

Democrats have absolutely no ground to stand on when it comes to war now. When Bush went to war in Afghanistan, he went to war because America was attacked on its soil. When he went to war in Iraq, he went to war because intelligence from at least three different countries told him there were WMDs in Iraq. Now, he may have turned out to be wrong, and you can argue that he should have investigated the matter more thoroughly before he sent soldiers into Iraq (although I would argue that human rights violations alone might have justified action in Iraq), but at least he had a reason. Obama, on the other hand, just went into Libya - and I'm not even sure he knows why.

As far as being a party of "No." We need that now. Everyone has said "yes" to everything for too long. Sometimes "No!" is the right answer. Congress seems to have more of a problem understanding this than my four-year-old son.

I really don't care if Planned Parenthood is "just" for abortions or not. For me, that's like saying a concentration camp isn't JUST for killing Jews. But even if one pretends that unborn babies are just masses of tissue without rights, giving federal funds to the organization is disturbing on many levels. First, because it heavily endorses and campaigns for one party. Indeed, the organization has come out and said that it campaigned for "new leadership" in the last presidential election. I do not think it's particularly fair to give federal funds to an organization that stumps for only one party. I also don't think it's right to fund an organization that continually engages in unethical behavior.

Planned Parenthood has been complacent in the exploitation of hundreds of underage girls. Although Planned Parenthood has been aware of hundreds of instances of statutory rape and has performed abortions on hundreds of underage girls, I cannot find one instance of the organization actually reporting these rapes to the authorities. On the contrary, it sometimes (as in the O'Keefe incident) encourages older men who have impregnated young girls to lie about their age. IF Planned Parenthood's supporters actually care about the health of women and girls, they should be outraged by this. But instead, they attack conservatives for objecting to Planned Parenthood's behavior.

Finally, the Republicans did compromise when they gave up on defunding Planned Parenthood.

[Tom]

Miranda, so you don't have any proof that PP uses federal money for abortions, but you do have assumptions and conspiracy theories. That's not enough to take away funding that's used for the good things PP does (some of which can actually PREVENT abortions). It looks like all you want to do is burn it all down without caring about poor women who need those services.

[Miranda]

I didn't make the claim that they did use federal money for abortions, nor did I offer up any conspiracy theories. I did, however, point out that even if federal funds aren't used to directly fund abortions, they do make it easier for Planned Parenthood to perform them. If Planned Parenthood doesn't have to spend as much for other services, they have more to spend on things like abortion. I guess if you want to call that a conspiracy theory, you may. I think it's logical.

On the accusation that Republicans are only concerned about ruining care for poor women, I would refer you my earlier comments about Planned Parenthood's complacency and, in some cases, cooperation in the exploitation of girls.

Finally, I would note that Republicans offered funding for similar services (like cervical cancer screenings) from other organizations. The wasn't enough for Democrats. One could, therefore, easily say that the Democrats care more about funding their political pals than about women's health.

[William]

Miranda,

Perhaps Tom mistakes "conspiracy" with "fungibility".

"What Does Fungibility Mean? - A good or asset's interchangeability with other individual goods/assets of the same type. Assets possessing this property simplify the exchange/trade process, as interchangeability assumes that everyone values all goods of that class as the same."
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fungibility.asp

Here's an example of how money is fungible:

"You would like to go on a vacation but you have unpaid car repair bills. A wealthy uncle hears that you are having financial trouble and sends money to help. However, he would never have agree to pay for your vacation (he’s nice, but not that nice).

Once your uncle’s money is deposited into your checking account, you are free to spend it as you please. You then get to pay off your bills and go on vacation. In essence, you paid your bills (a necessity) while your uncle funded your vacation."

[Miranda]

William: Thanks for saying things better than I could!

[William]

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