By Tony Lauinger
Tony Lauinger
The grotesque spectacle of Planned Parenthood abortionists callously, cavalierly selling the organs of babies they’ve killed has enraged the American public. We’ve known Planned Parenthood aborts one-third of a million unborn children each year, as it operates the biggest chain of abortion mills in the country — but now we learn it is harvesting and trafficking in the body parts of the innocent children it slaughters.
This nauseating scandal has made it starkly clear that this death-dealing organization, engaged in the grisly, systematic marketing of human organs for money, has forfeited any claim to taxpayer dollars for any part of its budget. More than half a billion dollars from taxpayers currently go each year to Planned Parenthood. How is it that abortion advocates seek to justify killing unborn children based on a so-called right of “privacy” — and then demand “public” funding?
Planned Parenthood is responsible for one-third of the nation’s annual abortion death toll. Abortions provide more than half of Planned Parenthood’s annual non-government “health-services” revenue; abortions comprise more than 90 percent of its “pregnancy services.” Yet Planned Parenthood concluded, apparently, that the more than $150 million it rakes in each year from killing infants could be augmented by then selling the hearts, lungs, brains, genitals and livers of the babies it aborts. Its lust for blood money is evidently insatiable.
Sadly, there are no shortcuts to stopping the funding of the organization responsible for these barbaric acts of inhumanity. There is no silver bullet. Shutting down the government on Thursday would achieve absolutely nothing. The pro-abortion ideologue in the White House would make sure Planned Parenthood got taxpayer funding, regardless. His veto pen is an instrument of death. Elections have consequences, and we suffer daily the lethal consequences of the 2012 presidential election. The solution is not a government shutdown. The solution is the election next year of a pro-life president.
The bulk of Planned Parenthood’s public funding flows from entitlement programs such as Medicaid, and that money would not be even temporarily interrupted if the government shut down.
A government shutdown is not only utterly futile, it is also counterproductive. It would shift the focus — from Planned Parenthood’s despicable acts, to our fellow citizens adversely affected by the shutdown.
We know the drill. A Sept. 23 Associated Press headline previews the media game plan: “Gov’t shutdown could cut off food stamps.” Imagine the fun they’d have each day in the White House press office as they fed their media sycophants the stories: “child health care curtailed,” “school lunches stopped,” “Social Security checks held up”… We’ve been here before. Pro-life members of Congress would become the villains in this blame-the-Republicans game. And there is zero chance of success because Barack Obama will absolutely veto any spending bill that curtailed $1 of Planned Parenthood funding.
We must win the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens, work through the system of government our founders gave us, and elect a president who respects human life and will sign pro-life laws.
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel gave us those immortal words, “Never again.” And yet, 25 years after the Nuremberg War-Crimes Trials, our highest court sentenced to death 57 million innocent American children. That is the legacy of Roe v. Wade: 57 million dead — and Planned Parenthood adds nearly 1,000 more babies to that death toll each day.
Though a child’s birth might be considered a burden, it is written on man’s heart that we’ve no right to cause the death of an innocent human being. A compassionate society provides special protection for its youngest members. It doesn’t exploit them, kill them, and carve up their bodies for the benefit of those who should be their protectors.
Our nation will one day be judged by how we have treated the weakest and most vulnerable members of our human family. Let us strive, in the midst of this culture of death, to build, instead, a culture that respects human life.
Tony Lauinger is state chairman of Oklahomans For Life and vice president of National Right to Life. This first appeared in the Tulsa World newspaper.