An Irresponsible Plan

As the beginning of a new fiscal year for the federal government approaches—and with it, the need for at least a stopgap funding bill—Republican leaders are doubling down on their opposition to any government funding package that continues to support Planned Parenthood, the women’s healthcare group that has been a point of partisan divide in years past. Taxpayer money, conservatives in Congress have argued, has no place flowing to an organization that provides abortion services.

While Republicans—with majorities in both the House and the Senate—hold the government’s budget in the balance, they are putting forward a deeply flawed argument, grounded not in facts but rather in their disdain for abortion, that is proving ever more dangerous as the September 30 budget deadline nears.

Republicans have levied a number of arguments against federal support of Planned Parenthood, including the claim that taxpayer dollars are bankrolling abortions. Absent from Republican talking points, however, has been the fact that the federal government’s funding of Planned Parenthood does not contribute to its abortion services. Federal law bars the use of federal funds from paying for abortions; instead, the government helps support Planned Parenthood’s other services, including family planning and screenings for both cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. Furthermore, abortions make up only three percent of the services the non-profit provides.

Congressional Republicans have also turned to sensationalist tactics during the current budget stalemate. Conservatives have pointed in recent weeks to a the series of viral YouTube videos, which allegedly show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of fetal tissue after partial-birth abortions, while conveniently ignoring the fact that the donation of this tissue to scientific research is in fact a legal practice. And, in the unedited version of the video, the Planned Parenthood employee makes clear that the sale is not for the sake of profit, but rather to cover the clinics’ costs. In short, any fair-minded examination of the evidence arrayed against Planned Parenthood shows the obvious inadequacy of those arguments.

That Republicans are threatening another government shutdown purely out of their contempt for abortion shows striking thoughtlessness and irresponsibility. It also highlights the GOP's foolishness: The 2012 presidential election marked the largest gender gap in American history, as the Democrats won over female voters by a 12-point margin. Should Republicans continue to endorse policies that trivialize women’s legal rights, there is little reason to think that 2016 will yield a different result.

Republicans presidential candidates have spared no rhetoric on the issue. Carly Fiorina called the current fight in Congress a test of “the character of our nation,” and Senator Ted Cruz described it as a “war on faith.” More than anything, however, the Republican’s stalwart position in budget negotiations has proven a war on effective government. Republicans’ refusal to pass a budget unless Planned Parenthood funding is removed signals a lack of fiscal stewardship and an irresponsible approach to governing. As the fiscal deadline approaches, it is high time for the Republicans in Congress to abandon their fabrications about Planned Parenthood.