The Southern Baptist Convention is looking to take advantage of a Republican-controlled Congress and White House to finally strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood.
The SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has launched a campaign calling on Congress to remove federal funding from the nation’s leading abortion provider.
ERLC President Brent Leatherwood told The Christian Post that the strategy is centered on having the funding cut as part of the reconciliation process presently occurring in Congress.
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This process allows for measures to be passed by a simple majority in the Senate, rather than the usual 60-vote minimum threshold. Presently, Republicans hold 53 seats in the 100-seat chamber.
“Republicans have had historic commitments and made pledges that see clearly the evil that Planned Parenthood is responsible for, the millions of deaths of pre-born children, and the ways that they target vulnerable mothers,” Leatherwood told CP.
“And with the reconciliation process beginning with a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican-controlled White House, we think now is the time to follow through on those commitments and fully defund Planned Parenthood so that taxpayer resources aren’t going to this sort of horrific behavior and activity.”
Leaders and prominent members of the SBC, past and present, plan to sign onto the campaign, according to Leatherwood, with the plan being to reach out to assorted committees.
“We’re going to be delivering that message to the House of Representatives and, in particular, the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Budget Committee, to tell them that this needs to be a priority as they are saving taxpayer resources,” Leatherwood explained. “With a Republican controlled-House, Republican-controlled Senate, this is the moment to act on those historic pledges.”
“The Committees are now responsible for finding the budget savings to meet those topline numbers. And we’re proposing that this funding for Planned Parenthood that they get each year, it’s time to do away with that.”
For the past couple of decades, pro-life activists and lawmakers have attempted to remove the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds that Planned Parenthood receives annually.
Critics of these efforts to defund Planned Parenthood have long claimed that such cuts would endanger women’s health.
For example, Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, labeled a 2016 effort to defund Planned Parenthood that was vetoed by then-President Barack Obama a “reckless and politically-motivated crusade against women’s health care.”
“The president’s veto will prevent this measure from doing immediate harm to one of the nation’s most essential providers of care and the women and men they serve,” Northup stated at the time. Though a year earlier, in 2015, Planned Parenthood’s then-president, Cecile Richards, was forced to admit under oath that the business never provided life-saving mammograms as it had long claimed.
When asked by CP about the potential impact on non-abortion services if Planned Parenthood were defunded, Leatherwood said that he “would dispute the notion that Planned Parenthood provides those services in any sort of way that actually helps patients.”
Leatherwood directed CP to a New York Times article published on Saturday that found that several clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood were battling “scores of allegations” that they were providing “poor care” on a host of services.
“Many operate with aging equipment and poorly trained staff, as turnover has increased because of rock-bottom salaries,” reported the NY Times. “Patient counts have shrunk from a high of 5 million and 900 clinics in the 1990s to 2.1 million patients and 600 clinics today.”
Leatherwood believes that Planned Parenthood facilities “are about the business of ending life” and that other medical services are “not their driving concern.”
“Their driving concern is to target vulnerable mothers and end the pre-born life that is within them,” he said. “We want to protect those mothers, and we obviously want to protect those children. And the best way for Congress to do that right now is to defund Planned Parenthood.”
