GOP WHITE HOUSE HOPEFULS AGREE: NO PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDING…. There are a small handful of congressional Republicans who’ve seen their own party’s plan to end all funding for Planned Parenthood, and they don’t like it.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t extend to the field of likely GOP presidential candidates.
The rumored field of 2012 presidential hopefuls is uniting behind a plan to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, aligning them with a group of House conservatives who are insisting that any final budget deal includes a policy rider to defund the organization.
With less than week left for congressional leaders to reach a budget deal and avert a government shutdown, the proposed rider that would end all federal funding for Planned Parenthood remains one of the thorniest issues in the budget standoff. […]
Eight of the rumored 2012 Republican presidential contenders have now come out in favor of cutting the federal funding, which the anti-abortion rights group Susan B. Anthony List is highlighting in its ongoing effort to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood.
As it turns out, the total is actually nine, with Romney joining the other candidates — Palin, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Barbour, Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann, and Cain — in supporting an end to all Planned Parenthood funding.
As a substantive matter, it’s worth appreciating just how ridiculous this is. These candidates insist this has to do with abortion, but Planned Parenthood is already prohibited from using public funds to terminate pregnancies, and has been for many years. The practical consequences of the Republican policy is less access to contraception and family planning services, more unwanted pregnancies, and more women who’ll seek abortions.
When the entirety of the Republican presidential field goes along with this callous scheme, they’re really just endorsing a policy that’s likely to make the “problem” they hope to solve worse.
And as a political matter, we appear to have yet another addition to the Litmus Test List — every GOP candidate for national office will be expected to oppose any and all tax increases*, reject the existence of climate science, dislike gay people, hate the Affordable Care Act, and now, vow to reject funding for Planned Parenthood.
* fixed
