Respect for life is starting to gain some
ground. I admit that I have been one of
those people that assumes that most politicians are too weak to make a stand
for anything that might seem controversial, and most of them do pretty much the
same stuff once they’re in office. Of
course, I would have admitted that there are exceptions. One is developing right now. An article in the Washington Times came out
on Monday that said that 72 members of Congress have written a letter to the
Government Accountability office requesting that Planned Parenthood be
investigated.
Planned Parenthood performed over 300,000 abortions
last year and received over half a billion dollars in federal funding. That in and of itself is dangerous and is the
primary reason for the investigation. The
Hyde Amendment, passed in 1977, made federal funding of abortion illegal. Since then, it is been amended so that it has
three exceptions: when the life of the mother is in danger, when the pregnancy
results from rape, and when the pregnancy results from incest. The Guttmacher Institute, an organization
like Planned Parenthood that pushes “reproductive rights” and is an abortion
provider, reported in 2005 that less than 2% of women get abortions because of
rape or incest. They didn’t even have health
concerns in the report as a reason for abortion.
Technically speaking, Planned Parenthood receiving
federal funding is not a problem legally, so long as that money does not go to
funding abortions. The question becomes, what are the chances that
of the half billion dollars, not a penny is going to abortions when Planned
Parenthood performed over 300,000 of them?
Texas Representative Pete Olsen said that a previous GAO report was
done, but new information has surfaced. “[it
was] before we learned what many feared to be true — that Planned Parenthood
has failed to properly follow correct billing practices to prevent federal tax
dollars from funding abortion services, as demanded by law.”
This is big.
Just last week, Planned Parenthood said some of their clinics in Indiana
would be facing failure if a law passed that required giving an ultrasound
before giving an abortion-inducing pill (read about it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/indiana-senate-approves-requiring-ultrasound-before-abortion-pills-given-tougher-clinic-rules/2013/02/26/fae39b44-806e-11e2-a671-0307392de8de_story.html). Now, in addition, they could face punishment
for the misuse of federal funds.
Perhaps the most encouraging part of this is how
many Congress members joined in. 72. It’s
pretty hard to ignore a request made by 72 lawmakers. In a time when respect for unborn life was
reaching an all-time low, we are seeing an encouraging fact: the battle isn’t
over yet. According to gallup.com, in
1996 only 33% of Americans were pro-life.
In 2011, 45% of Americans were reported to be pro-life. In addition, when you take away the pro-life
and pro-choice labels, only 39% of Americans in 2011 saw abortion as morally
acceptable.
I fear many Christians have accepted it as a fact
that the battle is over and abortion is accepted by everyone in our
society. That’s not true. Not yet.
As a matter of fact, things are looking better now than they were
fifteen years ago. We’re gaining some
ground, so let’s take advantage of that and keep pushing forward. Keep praying, keep talking, and keep taking
the issue head-on. With God’s help, we
have nowhere to go but forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment