Carol Tobias, the President of National Right to Life Committee, wrote an article last Friday on the potential government shutdown over Planned Parenthood defunding efforts.
The right-to-life movement now finds itself at a crucial crossroads.
There are two different roads that we can take. One is to insist that no more money go to Planned Parenthood and cause a government shutdown (which won’t result in actually defunding Planned Parenthood). The other is to take a slightly longer-term approach, taking advantage of the fact that we have the attention of the country as probably never before, laying the foundation to defund Planned Parenthood after we elect a pro-life president in 2016, by conducting hearings and passing a series of bills that will not only educate the American public about Planned Parenthood, but make members of Congress show, by their votes, if they support the largest abortion provider in the nation…
National Right to Life believes that the evidence points to the wisdom of taking the second road – namely, taking advantage of this chance to shine a light on Planned Parenthood and the entire abortion industry and educate the American public about their callous disregard for unborn babies and the women they purport to “help” through the sale of their deadly service.
….So yes, President Obama would be willing to shut down the government, take money away from the military, take money away from the national parks, and put millions of federal employees on leave. He will do anything and everything to keep that money flowing to Planned Parenthood.
How long would the government be shut down? Two weeks? Two months? Six months? 15 months? I do not believe that Obama will “cave” to demands to sign legislation that blocks funding for Planned Parenthood, no matter how long he has to wait for the situation to be resolved—especially since he knows that every day that shutdown continues, Republican approval numbers will sink in the polls.
At the same time, the mainstream media will not talk about Planned Parenthood killing unborn children, or the CMP videos. They will, instead, uncover every story to demonstrate how hurtful a government shutdown is to ordinary Americans—and how the blame lies with every pro-life Republican in Congress.
She’s right that the window of opportunity won’t last long if our collective attention span based on media cycles is any indication. However if this fight is not worth the risking a government shutdown over I don’t know what is. Tobias echoes moderate U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who says nothing can be done without a pro-life President.
This sounds awfully familiar. Graham and company said if only we would elect a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate and we did. This Senate has been incapable because of its leadership to defund Obamacare, executive amnesty and it was incapable of passing a 5-month abortion ban. Democrats were not bound by Senate decorum when passing Obamacare and getting their judges in when they held the majority.
We need action and this Senate has been an abject failure. So, I’m sorry a call to wait until we elect a pro-life President is falling on deaf ears. If this Senate fails once again to take a principled stand to protect life then Republicans deserve minority status. Our goal is not to protect Republican approval numbers, but to protect life.
Be bold, take a stand.
Tobias before speaking on behalf of the National Right to Life Committee should have consulted her affiliates. Several members of Iowa Right to Life issued a statement objecting to Tobias’ article:
We support all parliamentary methods in the Senate and House to try and stop the continued funding of Planned Parenthood and expose both their brutal and evidently criminal enterprise and their supporters. We see key weakness in the political assumptions and analysis offered by National Right to Life (NRLC) President Carol Tobias who uses pejorative terms to advocate against an assertive and appropriate parliamentary process. We see strength in political and legislative arguments contrary to hers including the desire to support the stands taken by so many of the fine pro-life candidates running for president.
Fidelity to our own board demands that we object to any implication or suggestion by NRLC President Tobias that her opinions were vetted and approved by the fifty state affiliates and their sub-entities in her claim about what “NRLC” believes.
The views expressed here are individual views as just like NRLC, the Iowa Right to Life Committee Board has not met to debate this matter and we do not want to imply otherwise.
Kim Pitts, Treasurer, Iowa Right to Life and National Director
Roger Mall, Alternate National Director
Jenifer Bowen, Executive Director, Iowa Right to Life
Roger Rowland, President, Iowa Right to Life
Carol Tobias stood at the crossroads and took the road of surrender and she may be going it alone in light of where the rest of the pro-life community stands.