Pam Linn’s column (Keeping Social Policy Out of Economic Legislation) praises President Obama for his refusal to agree to de-fund Planned Parenthood in the recent budget debate. Yet, in the same column, Linn laments politicians who cater to a “narrow constituency” and “are beholden to a few supporters whose special interests they must defend.” Linn apparently does not realize those words precisely define Obama here.
Obama risked shutting down the government, putting thousands out of work, in order to maintain the gift of 361 million taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, the single largest abortion on demand provider in the country. The extremist minority demanding federal funding for abortion on demand is the “narrow constituency” and “special interest” group to whom Obama is beholden.
The last Gallup poll on the subject revealed that 77 percent of the country is against abortion on demand. Of all the treatment it provides pregnant women, 97 percent is abortion. It performs an abortion every 95 seconds. The extremist minority, fanatical on maintaining abortion on demand, insists on PP’s subsidization.
Linn also commends what she believes is Obama’s stand, that budget legislation should not be burdened with “social policy.” Linn is apparently unaware that just days after Obama’s action, he spoke at George Washington University and stated that the debate on the budget is about “more than just numbers on a page, It’s about the kind of country we believe in.” In other words, social policy.
Surely a social policy worthy of consideration is the impact on the black community. It was almost three years ago, that minister Harry R. Jackson, Jr. went to Congress with 60 other African Americans to demand that PP be de-funded, citing three reasons: “numerous accusations of under-aged girls receiving unauthorized abortions; alleged cover-ups of sexual abuse of minors; and racial targeting of African Americans.”
More recently Star Parker eloquently summed up the effects of abortion on demand. She made these points: it has harmed our social fabric and, in particular, the black community; personal responsibility is central to a functioning free society; the Roe decision legalizing abortion, enshrining sex for amusement and the illusion of sex without consequences, was a frontal assault on our culture of personal responsibility. In 1969, three years before Roe vs. Wade, 68 percent of Americans said premarital sex is wrong. Today 32 percent say it is wrong. Removing marriage as the framework for sex and children has produced results that don’t surprise. We’ve gone from 10 percent of American babies born to unwed mothers in 1970 to 40 percent today. A black child has a 50 percent chance of being aborted and, if born, a 70 percent chance of living in a single family home.
Yet Linn applauds extracting taxpayer money, making people, who rightly regard abortion on demand with revulsion, pay for its subsidization at PP, when those tax dollars could, and should, be saved.
Richard M. Coleman