Pro-Choice But Against Planned Parenthood

Note: My column last week was a satire on the government of California. That was not clear to some and if it confused anyone I apologize. Please enjoy this week’s column.

On February 3, 2000, the Los Angeles Times ran the only column I have written that they were ever willing to publish. It was because it went against their perceived Republican orthodoxy on the issue of abortion. I wrote that I was a pro-choice Republican and, because they felt that it would hurt the election of George W. Bush, they ran it. But it really was an attack on the existing inflexible defense of unlimited abortion by people who claim to be pro-choice.

I outlined three points that were variations on the unlimited abortion position. I stated that the vast majority of Americans supported my positions. The first was endorsing parental notification for underage females. Since then I have heard the same mantra for continuing to treat the medical procedure of abortion differently from any other medical treatment. Their argument is that it is not for people like me who would work with my daughter in a loving manner, it was to protect the young girl behind the tree who had those evil parents. I argued that if there was such an objectionable situation between a young lady and her legal guardians, then a court could adjudicate that matter on an individual basis. In the meantime, I still hold there is no excuse for an exception for this medical procedure.

The second point was elimination of late-term abortion. At the time there was discussion about late-term (third trimester) abortions and that they should be legal because of protection of life of the mother. I stated I disagreed and that the vast majority of these had nothing to do with the life of the mother. Since then the argument has moved to stopping abortions from occurring after twenty weeks. I think that is fine public policy as a refinement to the discussion fifteen years ago. My original comments were based on the viability of an unborn child and the fact that I thought most of the late-term abortions were either for the convenience of the mother or because someone found the child to have potential birth defects and did not want those burdens. That was wholly unacceptable then; and, with the advancement of science, it is less acceptable today. Having to deal with an unwanted pregnancy is a horrible challenge and decision to make, but if you cannot figure things out in 16 weeks after confirming you are pregnant (four weeks to determine pregnancy) then in my opinion you have lost your right to decide to terminate that pregnancy. After 20 weeks with today’s science there is viable life.

The last point I made was that there should be no public funding of abortion. After the Roe V. Wade ruling, the liberals who supported abortion made the worst decision they could make which was to force the anti-abortion people to pay for abortion with public funds. What should have been done was the pro-abortion people should have established charities to fund abortions for those who could not afford their own procedures.

But that is what liberals do – they cannot help themselves. They think all their ‘great ideas’ should be funded by an ever-expanding government with OPM (other people’s money). By using public funds to pay for abortions, they just offended the anti-abortion people more and fueled the campaign to stop abortion altogether.

We now have the issue of Planned Parenthood exploded in our faces. There is no doubt that Planned Parenthood does many fine, necessary medical procedures. But they also perform abortions – a whole lot of them. In fact, in 2013 they did 327,000 of them. Though figures are not clear based on the prior years, that is close to half the abortions in America. In the past, people have argued that the abortions performed by Planned Parenthood were done from private funds. They wanted people to believe the public funds were used for other medical procedures and the private funds for abortions. Someone thought we were all stupid and did not understand that money is fungible and can be used for what you want to once you get it in the door.

The recent spat about Planned Parenthood exposed their selling of fetal body parts. Whether you are pro- or anti-abortion, the videos are gruesome. The best argument against the videos that they could come up with was they were either unscrupulously obtained or edited. Yet, we did not hear the same outcry when a waiter taped Mitt Romney illegally. These same people were gleeful. In the videos, there was discussion of selling parts of fetuses and manipulation of abortions to preserve parts of the fetus to harvest portions to garner more value. People argued that Planned Parenthood did not sell the parts; they were just being reimbursed and the law allows that. You can call it what you want, but if you accept money for tangible personal property that is a sale no matter what some lawyer manipulated in the text of a law.

This issue would be ever so smaller if the American government did not provide an annual subsidy of an estimated $4.3 billion over the past ten years to Planned Parenthood. They can argue what they wish but, when an organization performs that many abortions and then questionably handles the fetuses, they are using the funds of the American taxpayers to do these things. As I argued in 2000, that should not be done. It should never have been done.

The supporters of abortions have brought this issue upon themselves. Even so, they cannot help themselves because they believe government should be the answer to everything -- even in funding a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization. If pro-abortion people so firmly believe in abortion, they should say go ahead; stop the federal funding of Planned Parenthood – we will make up the difference.

But they will not because they are liberals and they cannot help themselves.

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Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee.