Margaret Sanger Gets Canceled

Cancel culture has become notorious for attacking people who deviate from progressive ideology. Oftentimes the left eats its own, even when the transgression was inadvertent or years ago. That was the case this week when cancel culture came for Margaret Sanger.

Sanger was a birth control advocate and founder of Planned Parenthood, but, as pro-life critics of her work have pointed out for years, Sanger was also an advocate of eugenics. It is her work regarding eugenics that has finally been noticed by the left and led to her cancellation.

The eugenics movement was a popular pseudoscientific philosophy in the late 1800s and early 1900s popularized by Frank Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. The core of the movement included selective breeding of humans and culling the herd of undesirables. Advocates pushed for more reproduction from people with favorable genetic traits while attempting to limit procreation by people who were considered undesirable. Undesirable categories included the mentally ill, immigrants, minorities, and the poor.

The theory of eugenics was put into practice. In the United States, the Supreme Court upheld forced sterilizations with Oliver Wendell Holmes writing “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” British and American ideas on eugenics also spread to Germany where they became a cornerstone of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi policies.

Sanger believed that eugenics and birth control when hand in hand, writing in 1919, “Eugenics without birth control seems to us a house builded upon the sands. It is at the mercy of the rising stream of the unfit.”

Much of Sanger’s eugenics ideology was also directed against black Americans, who she worried in a 1939 letter, might get the idea “that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” That doesn’t seem to have been Sanger’s goal but her aims were nearly as disturbing. She advocated requiring permits to allow prospective parents to have babies and not allowing parents to have more children if other offspring have health problems. She even acknowledged advancing her ideas in a speech to the Ku Klux Klan.

Nevertheless, it is Sanger’s racism that has inspired New York’s Planned Parenthood chapter to change the name of Margaret Sanger Square at the intersection of Bleecker and Mott streets in Manhattan. The Washington Post reports that that change comes a month after the chapter’s white chief executive was ousted amid allegations of “systemic racism, pay inequity and a lack of upward mobility for black employees.”

In a statement, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said, “Planned Parenthood, like many other organizations that have existed for a century or more, is reckoning with our history, and working to address historical inequities to better serve patients and our mission.”

Ironically, while Sanger and other early eugenicists have fallen out of favor, eugenics itself is alive and well. Modern bigots still look down on other races and ethnicities and worry that demographics will affect the future of politics. Modern abortion is increasingly conceived of as a tool to eliminate babies who suffer from mental or physical defects, such as Down’s syndrome.

Margaret Sanger would approve.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Guess Which Abortion Provider Is Still Being Funded During the Shutdown

The government shutdown has reached the one-week mark and there has been much discussion of what services are not available and which government workers are not getting paid, but one organization has been overlooked. Despite years of Republican efforts aimed at defunding the abortion provider, even shutting down nonessential government services doesn’t appear to have cut off the group from its government money.

The reason that Planned Parenthood continues to get federal checks when air traffic controllers, park rangers, and members of the Coast Guard do not is that most of Planned Parenthood’s federal money comes through the Medicaid program. As with most of the federal entitlement programs, Medicaid money continues to flow during the shutdown. Kaiser Health News reports that Medicare and Medicaid are already funded through the second quarter. That would take the health programs through the end of March.

There are some aspects of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding that could be interrupted by the shutdown. In addition to Medicaid, the group is a major recipient of Title X family planning grants. According to the group’s website, Planned Parenthood serves 1.5 million of the approximately 4 million Title X patients. The Title X grants make up about 19 percent of revenue for participating clinics. These grants could quickly expire in a protracted shutdown.

Defunding Planned Parenthood wasn’t the goal of the current government shutdown, but it would have been a nice added benefit, especially since Democrats don’t seem any more inclined to deal on the wall than they were a week ago. However, even if all federal money dried up, it wouldn’t totally bankrupt the group. Planned Parenthood gets about a third of its funding from the government and the rest from private donations.   

For years now, Republicans have embraced a number of quixotic goals such as defunding Planned Parenthood, repealing Obamacare, and building a border wall. They have also embraced government shutdowns as a tactic in achieving several of these goals. Obamacare survived a shutdown in 2013 that also left Planned Parenthood funding intact. This year it appears that the wall will not be funded but that Planned Parenthood will.

Perhaps it is time for Republicans to find a new strategy.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Brett Kavanaugh Just Helped Planned Parenthood Keep Its Funding

In a surprising move, newly minted Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the Court’s liberal justices to prevent the high court from deciding whether states could defund Planned Parenthood. The move will let stand lower court rulings that struck down two state laws in Louisiana and Kansas that would have barred the abortion provider from receiving Medicare funds.

Louisiana and Kansas had sought certiorari to allow the Supreme Court to hear their appeals in Gee v. Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast and Andersen v. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. Four judges must agree to accept a case and the votes of Kavanaugh and Roberts to deny certiorari killed any chance that the Court would hear the Planned Parenthood cases, let alone allow states to defund the group.

Several other states have attempted to ban funding for Planned Parenthood at the state level after Republicans in Washington were unable to move a funding ban through Congress. For now, it appears that any further attempts to cut off the group’s federal money will be defeated.

Chief Justice John Roberts typically votes in the conservative bloc but has been key to some high-profile disappointments for constitutionalists. Roberts was the key vote in saving Obamacare with his opinion that the individual mandate was really a tax and therefore constitutional.

Kavanaugh’s vote may surprise some, but several observers predicted that if President Trump wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade, Kavanaugh was the wrong judge to pick. Similar to Roberts, Kavanaugh ruled on an Obamacare case in which he did not dispute the constitutionality of the health insurance law. Prior to Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) argued that Kavanaugh was a judge who would uphold precedent. That statement was interpreted as an indication that Kavanaugh would not strike down Roe and possibly Obamacare as well.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who was appointed to the Court by the recently departed George H.W. Bush, dissented, writing that the other judges were afraid to tackle the hot-button issue. “Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty,” Thomas said. “If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background.”

The decision not to grant certiorari is a hard hit for pro-life groups. “If Kavanaugh was going to deal a major blow to health care rights during his first session on the court, this would have been the case to do it,” Tim Jost, an emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, said in Politico.

During the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s pro-life platform and promise to appoint judges who would overturn Roe was a major reason that many Republicans held their noses and voted for him over Hillary. Given Mr. Trump’s long pro-choice history and the ready availability of more firmly pro-life, constitutionalist judges such as Amy Coney Barrett, many of those voters must wonder today if Justice Kavanaugh has gone rogue or if he is doing exactly what President Trump and other pro-choice Republicans wanted him to. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

So Much For Defunding Planned Parenthood

When the Republican House majority exits stage right in January, any chance of defunding Planned Parenthood will be leaving also. While it’s understandable that conservatives would be angry about the failure to end federal funding of the abortion provider, there was never really any chance that the GOP would be able to follow through on its campaign promise anyway.

With 51 Republicans in the Senate, it was theoretically possible that a ban on funding Planned Parenthood could be slipped into a budget resolution in order to avoid a Democrat filibuster. However, that strategy ignores the fact that there are Republican supporters of Planned Parenthood in the Senate. Their names are Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

The Republican pickup of two Senate seats in this year’s elections won’t help the matter either. When it comes to the Republican domestic agenda, the gain of two Senate seats is more than offset by the Democrat wave that boosted Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to control of the House. Any attempt at defunding Planned Parenthood will be aborted by House Democrats.

 “We told the White House, ‘Don’t sign any budget that funds Planned Parenthood,’” Kristan Hawkins, president of the Students for Life of America said. “‘We need you to uphold your campaign promises and force Congress to uphold theirs.’”

But, in reality, President Trump had little choice. Without the votes to pass a budget that cut Planned Parenthood’s funding, the choice was to either fund the government or shut it down. If the White House had forced a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding, they would have eventually had to surrender.

Republicans failed to make a case that convinced the American people that Planned Parenthood should not be funded. Although defunding the group is popular with the Republican base, 62 percent of Americans view Planned Parenthood favorably despite the fact that the electorate is evenly split on abortion.

Politico notes that many Republicans privately concede that frontal assaults on the Planned Parenthood are doomed to fail. Instead, many are looking for alternative strategies that incrementally strip away the group’s federal funding. Proposed changes to Title X by the Trump Administration would make it more difficult for abortion providers to qualify for federal funds. In West Virginia, voters recently approved a constitutional amendment that cuts Medicaid funding for abortion providers. Both moves will likely face legal challenges.

Defunding Planned Parenthood is a good idea but it was always unrealistic without a large Republican majority. The fact that President Trump’s chaotic presidency is quickly eroding Republican majorities at both the federal and state level makes it even more unlikely that Republicans will be able to terminate government funding for nation’s largest abortion provider.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Republicans Fail To Defund Planned Parenthood Again

For years, a central pillar of the Republican platform has been defunding Planned Parenthood. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) gave the party another chance to follow through on its commitment to strip federal money from the abortion provider yesterday, but the GOP failed once again to rise to the occasion.

Sen. Paul offered an amendment to a “minibus appropriations package for Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education” that would have stripped federal funding from Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide abortions. In a press release on his website, Sen. Paul said yesterday that Republican leadership was blocking a vote on the amendment.  Later in the day, Paul took to the Senate floor to accuse Republicans of blocking his amendment, which is already included in the House version of the bill.

“Planned Parenthood ends the lives of 320,000 babies each year,” Paul said. “That’s about 900 babies every day. Planned Parenthood receives over $400 million of taxpayer money. The government, with a wink and a nod, tells us that Planned Parenthood doesn’t spend the money on abortion, but everybody knows that the taxpayer is really cross-subsidizing Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills.”

Last week, before Paul was able to add his amendment to the limited spaces on the “amendment tree” of the bill, the Washington Examiner reported that Republicans who were worried that the controversial amendment would kill the funding bill placed another amend the ent in the last slot that changed funding of a government program by $1.

“Its only purpose was to block Paul,” a Senate insider said.

After Paul attacked the Republican Senate leadership on the floor of the Senate, Republicans relented and allowed a vote on the amendment. Two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats to defeat the amendment by a vote of 45-48. Four Republicans (Corker, Cruz, Fischer, and McCain) and three Democrats (Hirono, Murray, and Schatz) did not vote.

With midterm prospects looking bleak, the vote may mark the last opportunity for Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, but even if the amendment had passed defunding the group would have been a long shot. If the amendment had been added to the bill, Democrats would likely have filibustered the spending package since Republicans would have lacked the votes for cloture.

If Republicans really wanted to defund Planned Parenthood, it would be necessary to insert the measure in a budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered. Even then, if Republican leaders cannot pressure Collins and Murkowski to stick with their GOP colleagues, the two rogue senators would be enough to defeat the measure since Democrats always vote in a bloc to protect the abortionists.

In the end, the appropriations bill passed with bipartisan support in an 85-7 vote. The various departments of the federal government will get their money. So will Planned Parenthood.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Will Democrats Shut Down the Government?

Another year, another looming government shutdown.

This year it is Democrats who are threatening to shut down the government to block funding for President Trump’s border wall. Fresh from their victory in blocking reform of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats say that they will filibuster the annual appropriations bill if it includes money for construction of the wall. The bill must pass before April 28 to avoid a shutdown.

“I thought we were going to get a check from Mexico,” Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said in Politico. He added that the wall will “accomplish nothing. That’s $30 billion that can’t go into cancer research, diabetes research and veterans care.”

In recent memory, it has been Republicans who have threatened to shut the government down. The most recent example in 2013 followed several shutdowns during the Clinton Administration. While Democrats have been guilty of fomenting shutdowns, we must look all the way back to 1990 for the last example of a Democratic Congress shutting down the government under a Republican president.

While government shutdowns are not uncommon, they also are not popular with voters. Virtually every poll that asks about a government shutdown shows the voting public overwhelmingly opposed to and angry at the prospect. While shutdowns can be popular among the partisan base, most voters want the parties to work together for the good of the country.

When the Republicans shut down the government for 16 days in 2013, they not only failed to achieve their goal of defunding Obamacare, they also saw the party’s approval rating fall to a historic low. A year later, Obamacare’s skyrocketing increases in health insurance premiums and chronic problems with registration on exchange websites saved Republicans from an electoral drubbing. They weren’t so lucky in 1996 when Republican-led shutdowns arguably cost Bob Dole the presidency and ushered in a second term for Bill Clinton.

If Democrats haven’t learned from past shutdowns, Republican leaders apparently have. “We're not going to have a government shutdown,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said on CBS last month. “The president doesn't want to have a government shutdown.”

Ryan suggested that the battle over appropriations for the wall could be delayed until next year since plans for the wall have not been finalized. “The big chunk of money for the wall, really, is...next fiscal year’s appropriations because they literally can’t start construction even this quickly,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed, saying on Fox News that he was “very confident” that a shutdown could be avoided and argued that the Democrats had the most to lose from a potential shutdown. “I would advise President Trump: ‘Don't worry about them sticking that label on you. Congress owns the government shutdown brand,’” McConnell said. “There's no incentive, frankly, for either side to go to the brink.”

Republicans say they intend to keep controversial items out of the appropriations bill. Funding for the wall will be delayed and a measure defunding Planned Parenthood is likely to be inserted into the budget reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered. This may mean that Democrats are left with no hot button issues to demonize in the appropriations bill.

Nevertheless, Democrats in the past have shown a propensity for overreach. Overconfidence after the health care battle and an irrational emotional response to the mere existence of the Trump Administration could lead Democrats into a shutdown battle over nothing.

With President Trump’s approval rating at 35 percent in a recent Quinnipiac poll, Democrats would run the risk of blowback from a shutdown. The strategy might make the president more popular at their own expense. A maxim attributed to Napoleon is, “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.” Democrats would be smart to follow the French emperor’s advice. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Judge blocks Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood

A federal judge has blocked the State of Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood of state funding. In December, Texas served a “final notice of termination” to the abortion provider. The final notice culminated a process that began in October 2015.

According to the Associated Press, US District Judge Sam Sparks issued an injunction to prevent Texas from not paying the group, saying that the state had not provided evidence of wrongdoing. “A secretly recorded video, fake names, a grand jury indictment, congressional investigations — these are the building blocks of a best-selling novel rather than a case concerning the interplay of federal and state authority through the Medicaid program,” Sparks wrote in his decision. “Yet, rather than a villain plotting to take over the world, the subject of this case is the State of Texas's efforts to expel a group of health care providers from a social health care program for families and individuals with limited resources.”

Sparks wrote that the videos showing Planned Parenthood employees conspiring to sell the body parts of aborted babies for profit was not sufficient in itself to terminate funding for the group. “The Court is unconvinced mere willingness, without any evidence of attempt, is enough to deprive a Medicaid beneficiary of the right to her otherwise qualified provider,” Sparks said in the ruling. Several state witnesses admitted under questioning that the actions of the Planned Parenthood employees in the videos were not illegal.

According to the Texas Tribune, attorneys for Planned Parenthood argued that Texas could not adequately replace the group as a provider of health services for the poor. Sparks agreed that in terminating Planned Parenthood without cause, Texas violated the right of Medicare patients to choose their provider. “After reviewing the evidence currently in the record, the Court finds the Inspector General, and thus [the Texas Health and Human Services Commission], likely acted to disenroll qualified health care providers from Medicaid without cause," the ruling read. "Such action would deprive Medicaid patients of their statutory right to obtain health care from their chosen qualified provider.”

Attorneys for Texas countered that other providers in the state would be able to accept Planned Parenthood’s Medicare patients if the group lost funding. The state has more than 5,300 providers in its Medicare system.

Six states have now attempted to cut funding for the controversial group and all have lost in court. In addition to Texas, defunding attempts in Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi and Louisiana have all failed.

In addition, 13 states have conducted investigations into wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood that was alleged in a series of undercover videos, but no charges have been filed. Planned Parenthood denies any wrongdoing.

Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton said that the state is disappointed in the decision and plans to appeal. “No taxpayer in Texas should have to subsidize this repugnant and illegal conduct,” Paxton said in a statement. “We should never lose sight of the fact that, as long as abortion is legal in the United States, the potential for these types of horrors will continue.”

Planned Parenthood previously received $3.1 million from Texas in Medicaid funds. About 90 percent of that figure is federal money while the remainder is paid for by the state. The Trump Administration has threatened to defund Planned Parenthood at the federal level.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Video: Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Do Ultrasounds Unless You Want An Abortion

Lila Rose and Live Action have dumped another load of incriminating videos on Planned Parenthood. Last year, the pro-life group responsible for a series of undercover videos in which Planned Parenthood employees showed a fundamental lack of respect for human life. Now they have released another video calculated to embarrass the giant abortion provider with the words of its own workers.

The new video, “Abortion Corporation,” debunks Planned Parenthood’s claim that the group is about more than abortion. In the three-minute video, undercover women ask Planned Parenthood workers for a prenatal ultrasound. The video shows 14 conversations in 10 states. In every case, the Planned Parenthood workers say that they cannot provide prenatal ultrasounds.

A clinic worker in Corning, N.Y. tells a pregnant mother, “We tell you you’re pregnant and then we offer to do the abortion.”

The mother persists, “So, other than a pregnancy test, I heard you guys had ultrasounds? Would it be possible…”

The clinic worker cuts her off, “No, we only do ultrasounds if you are terminating.”

In St. Louis, a woman asks if she can get an ultrasound to determine if her baby is healthy. “No, nope, not something we offer,” is the curt reply from the Planned Parenthood worker.

A Council Bluffs, Iowa clinic worker says, “No, we don’t do any ultrasounds for prenatal care. We do them when we’re doing abortions, but not for any other reason.”

Several Planned Parenthood workers said that their ultrasounds only provide a confirmation of the pregnancy and how far along the pregnancy is. When a caller asks why, a Fayetteville, N.C. receptionist says, “That would be for our abortion services. That is the only thing that we do at our health centers.”

A Winston-Salem, N.C. worker confirms, “’Cause that [abortion] is the only service that we do. We don’t do any prenatal care or adoption here.”

One worker in Albuquerque, N.M. refers the woman to an OB/GYN who can give a “more detailed” ultrasound because “there is nothing we can do to help you here.”

Some viewers may wonder if the clinics in the video were cherry-picked? Maybe Live Action just included the clinics that refused to help the pregnant women who wanted to keep their babies. Live Action does admit that some clinics did not turn their investigators away. Of 68 clinics approached, three agreed to provide a prenatal ultrasound without an abortion.

Planned Parenthood claims on its website that “three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services” and that “80 percent of our patients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy.” Prenatal care is not listed as one of the group’s missions, but a search of the website does reveal that prenatal care is offered by some Planned Parenthood clinics.

Planned Parenthood receives more than $360 million annually from federal and state governments. Federal law prohibits federal funds from being used to provide abortions except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s life is in danger.

Republicans made several attempts to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood under President Obama. Some states have made similar attempts as well. During the campaign, President Trump’s message on Planned Parenthood was mixed, but he ultimately favored defunding the group as well.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Planned Parenthood President’s Shocking Reason For Aborting Her Baby

I remember the days when Bill Clinton talked about abortion. President Clinton’s mantra was nobody wanted to get an abortion. He said that it should be “safe, legal and rare.” Likewise, when the pro-choice crowd challenges legal restrictions on abortion, much of the time it is because the laws allegedly don’t contain strong enough provisions for hardship cases such pregnancies that result from rape, incest or that threaten the life of the mother.

There is some logic to these arguments. Americans can argue in good faith about if it is ever moral to kill an unborn baby. While I believe that abortion is murder and morally repugnant, I can concede that there are gray areas where there are no good choices. With deep moral and logical arguments to be made on both sides, it is all the more shocking to hear Planned Parenthood’s president Cecile Richards justify her own abortion.

In an interview with Katie Couric in 2015, Richards described her decision to take the life of an unborn baby. “It was a decision my husband and I made. It was a personal decision. And we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life. And we decided that was as big as our family needed to be,” said Richards. “It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that. But I can’t imagine a woman being in that circumstance — with an unintended pregnancy and not being able to make her own decision about that pregnancy.”

“It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that.”

Cecile Richards is the daughter of former Texas governor, Anne Richards (who notably coined the nickname “Shrub” for George W. Bush). She comes from an affluent family. Lifenews estimates the salary of the younger Ms. Richards at “around $600,000.” She is a one-percenter in her own right. Yet she chose to end the life of her baby, the sibling of her other three children, because “we decided that was as big as our family needed to be.”

This is no hardship case. This is not a gray area. This is a case of a wealthy woman who apparently was not on birth control or using contraceptives deciding that she didn’t want another child.

The Cecile Richards abortion is an example of the dishonesty of the abortion movement. The vast majority of abortions are for convenience or quality of life reasons, not for medical emergencies or due to sexual assaults. According to the Guttmacher Institute, rape and incest cases make up less than one percent of abortions. Abortions due to the health of the mother account for only 12 percent of abortions. Concerns about the health of the baby lead to 13 percent.

The most common reason cited for having an abortion? “Having a baby would dramatically change my life.” Cecile Richards’ excuse, “have completed my childbearing,” was given by 38 percent of women who had abortions.

The pro-choice movement is fundamentally a selfish one. At its core, it is all about “me.” The slogan “my body, my choice” puts all other considerations below the mother’s preference. The fact that a human being is killed, the desires of the father, even the possibility of problems with the mental and physical health of the mother are pushed aside.  

Abortion is not a necessary medical procedure to protect the life of the mother in most cases. Abortion is a tool with which people can escape the consequences of their actions.

Ironically, the extremist position of abortion for any reason may be hurting the pro-choice cause. Since the 1990s, the percentage of pro-choice Americans has plummeted while the pro-life position has increased. The country is equally split between the two viewpoints according to Gallup. On closer examination, the majority is neither pro- nor anti-abortion. A majority, 50 percent, of Americans believes in the middle ground that there should be legal abortion with restrictions. Most of these (37 percent) believe that abortion should be legal in only a few circumstances, presumably the traditional exceptions of rape, incest and when the mother’s life is in danger.

The change in attitudes about abortion helps to explain another shocking statistic. American abortions are their lowest level since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. The pro-life viewpoint is winning. Perhaps this is why abortion activists are sounding increasingly shrill and extreme.

(Hat tip to at Amanda Prestigiacomo at the Daily Wire for finding the 2015 interview.)

Originally published on The Resurgent

Texas tries to defund Planned Parenthood

(AnonMoos/Wikimedia)

The Texas Tribune reports that the State of Texas has served notice to Planned Parenthood that it will defund the organization. The notice gives Planned Parenthood 15 days to appeal the decision to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Planned Parenthood has indicated that their response will be through the courts rather than through state administrative channels. “Planned Parenthood continues to serve Medicaid patients and will seek a preliminary injunction in an ongoing lawsuit filed in November 2015, following the state’s original threats to take action against Planned Parenthood’s patients,” Yvonne Gutierrez, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, said in the Tribune.

The battle over funding in Texas began in October 2015 when Texas officials first gave Planned Parenthood notice of the state’s intent to cut off funding. The original notice gave the organization 30 days to respond or a “final notice of termination” would be issued. The final notice was actually issued more than a year later after there was no formal response from Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against the Texas defunding effort last year, but the suit lay dormant without the final notice.

The group previously received $3.1 million from Texas in Medicaid funds. About 90 percent of that figure is federal money while the remainder is paid for by the state. 

The notice cited a series of undercover videos that allegedly show that Planned Parenthood officials illegally conspired to sell body parts of aborted babies. Planned Parenthood denies the charges and claims that the videos were edited.   

“Your misconduct is directly related to whether you are qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner,” Texas Health and Human Services Inspector General Stuart Bowen wrote in the letter to the group. “Your actions violate generally accepted medical standards, as reflected in state and federal law, and are Medicaid program violations that justify termination.”

Several states have attempted to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood and the group has sued to keep the public money coming in. In recent months, Planned Parenthood has won suits against defunding in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kansas, and Utah.

At issue is a portion of federal Medicare law that allows patients free choice of providers. “Longstanding Medicaid law prohibits states from restricting individuals with Medicaid coverage from receiving their care from any qualified provider," a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services representative said in a statement in 2015. "Every year, millions of women benefit from critical preventive services, such as cancer screenings, that Planned Parenthood provides. State efforts to restrict women from using qualified providers puts these important health care services at risk.”

If state efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are stymied by federal law, then the problem might be solved by the new Republican Congress. Congressional Republicans tried to defund the group at the federal level, but were blocked by Democrats and the threat of a veto by President Obama.

Next year, President Obama will not be able to block legislation cutting off taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, but Donald Trump’s position on the issue has not been consistent. Throughout much of the campaign, Trump opposed defunding Planned Parenthood, saying the group “does do wonderful things, but not as it relates to abortion.” On several occasions, Trump supported cutting off Planned Parenthood’s funding for abortion, but not defunding the group entirely. In September, Trump did issue an unequivocal statement calling for full defunding of the group.

Under the Hyde amendment, originally passed in 1976, federal funds cannot be used for most abortions. The current version of the amendment contains an exception that does allow Medicaid funds to be used in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. Due to this law, federal funding for Planned Parenthood is already limited to providing services that are not related to abortion.

The Texas effort is unlikely to succeed due to its conflict with federal law. An effort by congressional Republicans stands a better chance, even with Donald Trump’s mixed record on Planned Parenthood.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why I voted for Evan McMullin and not Donald Trump

I’m a lifelong conservative who has voted Republican as long as I can remember. Growing up, I watched President Reagan swing Georgia from a state where a Republican couldn’t get elected dogcatcher to a state that was almost totally red. A defining moment of my political life was when I saw President Reagan live at a campaign rally in Atlanta. I started listening to Rush Limbaugh on talk radio in the 1990s and have been writing my conservative Christian blog since 2007.

This makes it all the more surprising for people when they find out that I’m not voting for Donald Trump. In fact, I voted early last week and cast my ballot for Evan McMullin, the independent conservative.

Why I voted for McMullin and why I didn’t vote for Trump are closely intertwined. The bottom line for me is that I don’t believe that either Trump or Hillary should be president. In fact, I don’t believe that either Trump or Hillary should be allowed anywhere near the White House. Not even on a tour group.

People say that if I don’t want Hillary to be president, I should support Donald Trump. The truth is that I oppose Trump for many of the same reasons that I oppose Hillary Clinton. The two candidates are evenly matched in many areas. Trump and Hillary both have deep character flaws. Both are chronic liars. Both are dishonest. Both are corrupt.

I had always said that I would vote Republican as long as the party supported my beliefs and values. Under Donald Trump, it no longer does.

Hillary’s corruption is well known, but when I looked into Trump’s background, I found a seemingly endless list of scandals even before the revelation of his sexual harassment problem. Not paying workers, using eminent domain to take the homes of less wealthy and connected Americans, and openly bragging about bribing elected officials are only the icing on the cake. His unsatisfied clients say Trump was literally a con man who stole tens of thousands of dollars from hardworking real estate investors through Trump University and then allegedly paid off state attorneys general like Pam Bondi in Florida to cover his tracks.

I’ve been told that Trump’s corruption is less damning because he was in the private sector or that the amounts of money involved were less than the Clinton Foundation payoffs. In truth, corruption is a matter of the heart. If Trump would steal from a guy who has to max out his credit card to pay Trump University tuition, why would he not steal from the taxpayers of the United States or use his position to line his own pockets?

If Christian conservatives like me put aside our ethical problems with Trump to defeat Hillary, what have we won? Trump is a New York liberal who, until he started planning to run for president, held traditional liberal views. Even while running as a Republican he has advocated universal government healthcare and raising the minimum wage, supported federal money for Planned Parenthood, and has even adopted Democrat positions on gun control. You would be hard pressed to find any of Donald Trump’s positions which involve shrinking government or making it less powerful. If we elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, we will only have succeeded in electing a different liberal.

Trump is even worse than Hillary on some issues. Trump bragged that his trade policy was “very similar” to that of Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders. An analysis of Trump’s tariffs and rejection of trade deals found that they would probably cause a recession that might cost as many as 5 million American jobs.

He is no less of an isolationist when it comes to military alliances. He has threatened not to defend NATO allies and called NATO itself “obsolete,” even as Vladimir Putin’s forces carve off pieces of the Ukraine. Trump has said that he is open to proliferation of nuclear weapons and threatened to withdraw American troops from South Korea and Japan where they have stabilized East Asia for the past 60 years.

It was not being too strong that caused the last world war, it was being too deferential to expansionist dictatorships. This is a problem for Trump as well. Trump seems to have a fascination with dictators, but his admiration for Vladimir Putin is particularly troubling, from their bromance last fall to the growing body of evidence that Russia is interfering with the election in a way that benefits Trump. Russia’s investment in Trump may have already paid off. This year’s Republican Party platform dropped a proposal to arm Ukraine against the Russian invaders. The change reportedly came from the Trump campaign. Trump also seems ready to yield America’s role in the Middle East to Russia.

I can find no evidence that Trump is the America-loving conservative that he claims to be. There seems to be no Emmaus road moment that he can point to that led him to change his mind on so many issues. I can find no evidence that he is anything other than an actor playing a role. He is a liberal playing a conservative and occasionally he lapses into his true beliefs or cynically changes positions where he sees a potential benefit.

The character problems, liberal ideology and erratic behavior are red flags that warn about Trump’s lack of judgment. Just as Hillary Clinton’s use of an unapproved private email server and solicitation of donations in exchange for access while Secretary of State are disqualifying, Trump’s many scandals are a warning to voters that he is not to be trusted either.

In fact, almost everything about both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seems to resonate as a warning against making them president. I cannot think of two people that I believe are less equipped to handle presidential authority and responsibility than the Terrible Two.

Some argue that Trump would surround himself with good people who would keep him in line. I think the reverse is true. One need only watch Mike Pence’s debate performance to see the corrupting influence of Trump on the Republican Party. Pence made excuses for Donald Trump and transparently denied that Trump said things that everyone has seen him say on video. What would four years with Trump as leader of the GOP do to the America’s conservative party?

Just when I was considering voting for Gary Johnson as protest or even not voting at all since Johnson showed himself to be a nut, Evan McMullin announced his candidacy.

After watching several interviews of McMullin, I boarded the “Evan Express.” McMullin is essentially a traditional Republican. He is a pro-life, free trade, strong defense, small government conservative. After working for the Republicans in the House of Representatives as a policy advisor, McMullin knows his stuff. He seems to be more knowledgeable than any other candidate, including Hillary Clinton. It is unfortunate that he was not included in the debates.

What really sold me on McMullin was not his policy chops though. What sold me on McMullin was simply the fact that, in a race dominated by two people who are, to use Hillary’s word, deplorable, he was an honest, decent man. He is the sort of person who tries to bring people together, rather than drive wedges between demographics to glom onto a few more votes.

I know that McMullin is a long shot. On the other hand, McMullin’s odds of becoming president are far greater than the odds of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton becoming a president that I can be proud of. Given the choice between sacrificing my beliefs to elect an untrustworthy, liberal Republican who I believe would be a disaster for the country or supporting a candidate that who shares my beliefs, I decided to vote my conscience.

David Thornton is a contributor to The Resurgent

America "racing toward judgment" as Shemitah draws to close

Jonathan Cahn / Hope of the World

As the 2014-2015 Shemitah year draws to a close, the world is once again falling into financial turmoil. The US stock market moved into correction territory last week and, in early trading this week, the Dow crashed more than 1,000 points before recovering to a mere 588 point loss. The current volatility in the market is not the only bad news of the current Shemitah, however. The Shemitah, which began last September, was ushered in with several ”shakings,” in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, who discovered the Shemitah pattern and wrote the book, “The Mystery of the Shemitah.”

"America is racing toward judgment," says Rabbi Jonathan Cahn in a video posted on You Tube. "Not one but multiple factors are converging."

The Shemitah began on September 24, 2014 with another stock market correction. CNN Money noted that the “September slump” did not last for the entire month of September. Instead, “starting on Monday, September 22, investors hit the pause button and kept hitting it for much of the rest of the month.” This coincided almost perfectly with the onset of the Shemitah.

Following on the heels of the stock market crash was a shaking of a different sort. On September 30, 2014, the CDC confirmed the first case of Ebola in the United States. Over the next few weeks, several other cases were identified around the country, prompting a state of near panic in many urban areas. The panic lasted throughout the month of October as more cases were diagnosed and the first patient, a Liberian immigrant, died. Spurring more fears, a number of medical professionals who had treated patients in the original outbreak in Africa flouted quarantines and traveled around New York and the country.

The stock market experienced a rough October as well. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced sharp downturns in mid-October. Although both indexes regained their losses over the next few weeks, Shemitahs have historically been marked by volatility in the markets and the current Shemitah is no exception.

 In early July, the Chinese stock market crashed after reaching a record high on June 12. On July 4, the Chinese government suspended the sale of stocks in an attempt to stave off losses. In spite of the Chinese government’s attempts to manipulate the market, the International Business Times reports that Chinese stocks lost more than eight percent of their value on what has come to be known as “China’s Black Monday.” Quartz notes that stock markets around Asia closed with sharp declines. Further, Zero Hedge listed 23 countries around the world where stock markets are currently crashing. Thomas DeMark, founder and CEO of DeMark Analytics, told CNBC that the Chinese stock market crash closely resembles the US crash of 1929 in which the stock market lost 50 percent of its value and the contagion spread around the world.

Other factors that may be contributing to the world’s economic woes are the collapse in oil prices, the Greek debt crisis and the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. Holman Jenkins wrote in the Wall St. Journal that the Greek crisis has largely been resolved without Greece having to address its core problem of deficit spending. Reform of Europe’s welfare state has been kicked down the road and Europe’s debts will continue to mount.

Martin Feldstein, President Reagan’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, wrote in the Wall St. Journal that some of the US market’s difficulty can be attributed to the Fed’s policy of low interest rates that dates back two seven-year Shemitah cycles to the September 11 attacks and the resulting stock market crash in 2001 on the last day of the Shemitah. The Fed kept interest rates low throughout the remainder of the Bush Administration which fed the real estate bubble that burst in 2008 on the last day of that Shemitah year. Feldstein notes that after the failure of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke promised to hold rates near zero for the long term. Low interest rates have also pushed investors into the stock market due to low yields on other investments. Recent articles have pointed out that with interest rates hovering near zero, the Fed has little room left to combat a new economic crisis and may even take rates into negative territory.

The confluence of bad economic news into a perfect storm scenario is compounded by the rejection of Judeo-Christian values and morals. The 2015 Shemitah has been hallmarked by a turning away from God. The most notable example of this is the Supreme Court decision to overturn the will of the people and thousands of years of tradition to redefine marriage. By the time the Supreme Court ruled on the Obergefell case, same sex marriage had become the law in a majority of the United States. In almost every state, the redefinition of marriage was imposed by a small clique of judges and not the voters of the state.

Also in the summer of 2015, a series of undercover Planned Parenthood videos unveiled the dark world of the abortion provider. The videos revealed the callous disregard for life among Planned Parenthood employees and the stark truth that the sale of body parts from aborted babies is a vital part of the organization’s business model. In one video, a former employee of a stem cell harvesting company accused Planned Parenthood, which receives federal government funding, of harvesting the brain of a baby whose heart was still beating. Contrary to the public face of abortion in which proponents deny the humanity of unborn babies by using the euphemism “fetus,” Planned Parenthood’s employees freely refer to “babies” on the videos as they joke about the killings. Even during the murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell the horror of abortion has never been so clearly exhibited.

Symbolic of America’s rejection of God, a statue of Baphomet, a satanic deity, was unveiled in Detroit in July. The nine-foot tall statue was unveiled at what is purported to the “largest public satanic ceremony in history” according to Time.

A landmark event of the Shemitah that touches on both morality and policy is President Obama’s tentative nuclear deal with Iran. The deal marks not only a danger for the United States, since it fails to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but is a historic break between Israel and the United States. Since its birth in 1948, Israel and the United States have maintained close relations. The US was among the first countries to recognize the nation of Israel and the US provided valuable support to Israel during many of its wars for survival. Most notably, in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, it was resupply by the United States that helped Israel to survive a coordinated attack by its Arab neighbors.

The Iran deal changes the relationship between the two countries. Barack Obama has been more hostile to Israel than any other president. From the beginning of his administration, Obama pushed for a return to Israel’s almost indefensible pre-1967 borders. The deal with Iran will place the United States at odds with Israel as it provides financial support to the Iranians. The removal of sanctions and lack of inspections will make it easier for Iran to build nuclear weapons with which to threaten both Israel and the United States.

The 2015 Shemitah has been a momentous period. With three weeks left in the current Shemitah, which ends on September 13, there is the possibility of even more volatility and chaos. Secular analysts are predicting that the current financial unrest will continue for several months until markets find an equilibrium.

Rabbi Cahn believes that it is not too late to avert judgement. “I am led to call for a period of prayer, repentance and intercession for America, to end on Sept. 23, Yom Kippur," he says. "It is crucial the people of God come before Him now on the foundation of 2 Chronicles 7:14: 'If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land.”

Kermit Gosnell may change national conversation on abortion

The trial of Kermit Gosnell may represent a turning point in the American discussion of abortion. The story is not merely the heinous crimes committed by Gosnell and his staff; the other half of the story is the left’s almost total lack of outrage. As James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal wrote in his excellent summary of the case, the mainstream media almost totally ignored the entire case and trial until an outpouring of interest on the internet all but forced coverage of the trial onto television and into newspapers.

Bill Clinton made famous the line that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Under modern Democrats, the attempt to make abortion rare, if there ever was a real attempt, has fallen by the wayside. Obamacare’s contraception mandate also forces insurance companies to include coverage for abortifacient drugs and President Obama’s budget increased federal funding for mega-provider of abortion Planned Parenthood. While Gosnell was on trial, President Obama became the first president to speak to Planned Parenthood, telling the group “as long as we've got to fight to protect a woman's right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you've also got a President who's going to be right there with you fighting every step of the way” and “God bless you” according to Politico.

As the grisly details of Kermit Gosnell’s practice come to light, it is becoming apparent that the left is far more concerned with keeping abortion legal than in keeping it safe. (Clinton apparently meant safe for the mother; abortion is almost always fatal for the baby.) A major point that pro-abortion activists frequently make is that legal abortion is needed to avoid keep women from being maimed in “back alley” abortions. It is apparent now that these back alley abortions continue in the offices of people like Kermit Gosnell.

Among the dead from Gosnell’s Philadelphia office was a 41-year-old woman who had come to Gosnell for an abortion. According to the grand jury report, Karnamya Mongar, a Nepalese immigrant, was given repeated doses of Demerol while waiting for Gosnell to perform her abortion. After several hours of waiting in a drug-induced sleep, Mongar stopped breathing. It is not certain how long Mongar lay there dying before the clinic’s employees noticed. It is known that when she was discovered Gosnell half-heartedly performed CPR, but did not administer drugs that could have restarted her heart. The clinic had a defibrillator, but it was broken. Ms. Mongar was probably brain dead before paramedics were even called. The report states that before paramedics arrived, the clinic staff hooked up equipment and rearranged the body to make it appear as if Ms. Mongar died in the midst of a procedure. Any chance of reviving her was lost as paramedics were unable to get her out of the building for 20 minutes due to cluttered hallways and padlocked emergency door.

Gosnell came close to killing other women as well. The report details several other instances in which Gosnell’s medical incompetence and negligence resulted in serious illness and near fatal complications for his patients. Many clinic employees were not trained or licensed. One employee who commonly dosed out medications was an untrained high school student. Gosnell inadvertently implicated himself by recording hundreds of late term abortions as 24. 5 weeks, when the Pennsylvania law limited abortions to earlier than 24 weeks.

Gosnell’s record of abusing women goes back 40 years ago to 1972. On Mother’s Day, Gosnell offered to perform abortions on 15 poor women from Chicago who were bused to his clinic. Gosnell did not tell the women that they would be guinea pigs for a new abortion device, a ball of gel-coated plastic razors to be inserted in their uteruses. Their body heat was supposed to melt the gel, loosening the razors and cutting up the unborn babies. In reality, the device, called the “super coil,” caused serious complications for nine of the 15 women. One required a hysterectomy. The incident became known as the Mother’s Day Massacre.

There were many more recent reports of problems at Gosnell’s clinic. It is apparent that he flouted numerous laws and nearly killed an unknown number of women due to poor sanitary methods and negligence, yet Pennsylvania’s medical regulators did not investigate. There were a multitude of complaints including a doctor who noticed that many of his patients who went to Gosnell contracted the same venereal disease. The medical examiner of Delaware County informed the Pennsylvania Department of Health that Gosnell had illegally performed an abortion on a 14-year-old mother with an unborn baby at 30 weeks. In one case, Gosnell refused to halt an abortion for a woman who changed her mind. Then, on November 18, 2009, Karnamaya Mongar died of a drug overdose in Gosnell’s office.

The report notes that none of this triggered state inspections of the clinic. In fact, in 1993 Pennsylvania had completely stopped inspecting abortion clinics for political reasons under the administration of pro-abortion Republican Tom Ridge.

Even pro-choice Americans should be concerned about the abysmal conditions that Gosnell’s patients endured. There were many reports of infections and life threatening complications before Gosnell and his staff actually killed Ms. Mongar. It is readily apparent that Gosnell did not operate a “safe” abortion clinic and was actually a threat to the health and wellbeing of women. Any doubts to this effect should be dispelled after reading testimony about how Gosnell drugged patients who were upset or slapped them.

Gosnell was part of a black market for abortionists who will circumvent the meager restrictions on abortions that the courts permit states to enact. Gosnell was aided and abetted not only by his clinic staff, but by numerous referrers, many of whom must have known that Gosnell was performing abortions at much later stages than the law allowed. It seems that the patient’s ability to pay was Gosnell’s only concern. In the end, the raid on Gosnell’s clinic was not due to his many violations of the law, Mongar’s death, or complaints by other women or doctors. The 2010 raid was based on suspected illegal drug trafficking.

In many respects, Gosnell’s clinic was not unique. The undercover filmmakers at Live Action have made a several short films showing abortion clinic workers helping patients to break laws limiting abortions. The practice of circumventing abortion restrictions appears to be widespread enough to warrant further investigation.

There is also evidence that other abortion clinics are substandard when it comes to keeping clean and sanitary facilities. A clinic in Ohio was ordered closed last month after failing a state health inspection. A second Ohio clinic in Toledo may be closed as well. A Planned Parenthood clinic in Delaware is charged with using unsterile instruments and rushing patients through procedures on bloody tables. Police investigating a break-in at a Muskegon, Mich. clinic found similar unsanitary conditions. A Lexington, Ky. abortionist’s medical license was suspended amid charges of fraud and unsanitary conditions. A Wilmington, Del. Clinic was closed in March 2013 after four women were rushed to the hospital with complications within a month. In Atlantic City, N.J. an abortion clinic was closed in for a series of health code violations.

USA Today reported that abortion clinics in Delaware are not required to undergo routine inspections. Maryland does not inspect for cleanliness and New Jersey only inspects surgery centers. In Virginia, the cleanliness and safety of abortion clinics has become a political issue after the state’s clinics were issued 80 violations according to Breitbart. Inspections of clinics vary from state to state with several states apparently choosing not to inspect at all even though the potential for infection and disease is high.

The Gosnell case explodes several myths about abortion in America. Abortion is not the safe, sterile procedure that advocates make it out to be. Many clinics are apparently unsanitary even by basic standards. Many abortion clinic workers seem eager to help clients break the law and often avoid fulfilling even basic obligations for counseling.

Statistics show that other promises of abortion proponents have also been unfulfilled as well. Abortion proponents claimed that abortion would reduce out of wedlock births and child abuse. In reality, a Bowling Green State University study from 2005 showed that women who have had abortions are 144 percent more likely to abuse their children. A study by Edward Lenoski of the University of Southern California found that 91 percent of abusive parents had wanted their children.

The trend toward unwed motherhood has been accelerated since Roe v. Wade. A report released in March 2013 by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and the RELATE Institute indicated that almost half of U.S. births are now out of wedlock. The average age when a woman first gives birth is now 25.7. The average age when a woman gets married has increased to 26.5.

Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/kermit-gosnell-case-may-break-deadlock-on-abortion-1