Wondering why the GOP has not yet defunded Planned Parenthood of its $500 million in taxpayer funds despite previously holding both chambers of the U.S. legislature and the presidency? According to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the leadership fears that “we might win.”
In a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference, the unapologetically pro-life U.S. Senator said that Republicans are not following the will of pro-lifers despite the movement’s growth, reports LifeSiteNews.
“We still lose in the legislation,” Rand Paul said. “We lose because the people who come to you and give you lip service and say, ‘Oh I’m pro-life, I’m pro-life,’ and then they don’t seem to vote that way.”
The senator from Kentucky related an anecdote of how he tried pass a spending bill defunding Planned Parenthood only to have the GOP leadership shut it down for no other reason than to play political football.
Last year, I tried to attach to a spending bill a prohibition to have any money spent by Planned Parenthood.
You know what happened? [GOP leadership] sat me down and one of the senior Republican senators said, ‘We cannot have the vote today.’
I said, ‘Why?’
He said, ‘We might win.’
According to Paul, when he challenged this unnamed individual as to why the GOP would not fight to protect unborn life as promised, the person just smiled.
“What does this mean? Does this mean that passing your spending bill, getting the Democrats to vote for your spending bill, is more important than life?” Rand Paul said he asked the person. “Then he just smiled.”
Speaking to the crowd of mostly Evangelical Christians, all of whom were horrified to hear this news, Rand Paul lamented that D.C. has “Republicans that are more concerned with spending money than protecting the unborn.”
As The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh argued when Republicans failed to defund Planned Parenthood time and time again, the GOP leadership may indeed be using the issue as a bargaining chip to win future elections rather than an actual cause they feel passionately about.
A pro-life party wouldn’t need any encouragement to defund the abortion industry. It would get the job done on the first day and then it would move on to passing legislation that offers more direct protections to the unborn. The Republican Party, despite all the power it was given, did neither of those things.
Why? Well, it’s always the same ingredients with Republicans: cowardice and dishonesty. They are cowards because they fear the tidal wave of impotent outrage that would come their way if they ever actually did anything pro-life. They are dishonest because, contrary to the unconvincing talking points they spew, they don’t really want abortion banned or funding cut off. If they ever solved the problem, they wouldn’t be able to use the problem in their campaign speeches. I do not know how most of them personally feel about abortion itself, but it’s quite clear that they love the issue of abortion. They know that no matter how often they betray us, we will keep coming back, keep giving them our support, always with the desperate and pitiful hope that they will actually do something for a change.
President Trump, however, has promised to make the pro-life cause a central tenet to his 2020 platform and has openly blasted Democrats for pushing extreme late-term abortion measures in states like New York and Virginia.