McConnell announces Tuesday vote to defund Planned Parenthood

It’s starting to look like Mitch McConnell has done something right, although I realize sneaky majority leaders have ways of making it look that way when it’s not really true. Planned Parenthood has become so indefensible, McConnell appears to think he has no choice but to allow a Senate vote to defund it – which is scheduled for Tuesday. It’s not quite as simple as that. First the Senate has to vote on “cloture,” which means they would cut off debate on the measure and clear the way for a simple majority vote. You need 60 votes out of 100 to end debate, so they can’t get that without at least six Democrats joining them. Is that possible? It might be given the horrors we’ve seen in recent weeks in the undercover videos shot by the Center for Medical Progress.

I know Democrats have historically defended Planned Parenthood no matter what, but that’s getting harder to do with what we’re learning about the selling of harvested fetal tissue – despite their legalistic insistence that they’re just “covering their costs” and it’s just for “research.” The fact remains that money is changing hands as the body parts of aborted babies are being acquired by third parties. You have to be pretty cold for a technicality to make you feel OK about that. So maybe McConnell can get the 60 votes for cloture. If he does, my guess is that neither the Senate nor the House has a difficult time passing a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. The bill as written would not actually end funding of women’s health services, but would redirect it to other providers. In light of these videos, I’d be shocked if many Republicans still wanted to go on record in favor of funding Planned Parenthood, and the way the bill is written makes it easier for a lot of Democrats to support it too. So that brings us to President Obama. Will he veto the bill? Probably. He’s already got Press Secretary Josh Earnest insisting the videos are fraudulent (and with no sense of embarrassment he cites Planned Parenthood as his source for that belief). Planned Parenthood is about as close to a sacred cow as you’re going to find among the hardcore, pro-abortion left. To them it’s a foregone conclusion that this whole controversy is nothing but a right-wing lie, and they’re counting on Obama to act accordingly should any defunding bill cross his desk. They’d be furious with him if he signed it.

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So assuming he will veto the bill, is there any point to passing it? Of course there is. For one thing, it’s the right thing to do. During a time when Congress is controlled by one party and the president is of the other party – and is bound and determined to block anything not comporting to his agenda – it’s the job of Congress to pass just laws and if nothing else force the president to be accountable for his decision to oppose them. If Planned Parenthood is going to keep receiving federal funding in spite of what we now know about its sale of fetal tissue, then the nation should know that is solely on the shoulders of Barack Obama, and he should be made to explain why he took that action. I’d also like to see Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat presidential candidate attempt to defend Planned Parenthood in light of what we’re learning. It’s one thing for Obama to do it because he can’t run for re-election. Is a Democrat who will face the voters next year ready to keep sending money to the people who do these things? Finally, passing this bill is the right thing to do because the media are determined to ignore this story if they possibly can. Congressional action makes that harder to do. I realize that, if they are forced to report the story, they will try to make it about the politics and about the charges against the people who shot the video. But that still keeps the videos in the spotlight, and if people keep watching them, I don’t see how they can possibly come to any conclusion apart from the obvious one: Planned Parenthood is engaging in a monstrous practice here, and they’re lying about it. They may not be defunded this week or this year, but the more the public learns about what’s really going on, the more likely it is that their funding is not long for this world.