Report: White House wants to use Obamacare replacement to defund Planned Parenthood

Successful societies require strong moral anchors. Lacking those, societies have to rely more heavily on government regulation and enforcement.

The latest Planned Parenthood incidents exemplify how we are losing our moral bearings. As a result, there will be even more government to replace the internal values that used to guide us.

We have been moving in the wrong direction.

From CBS News:

Senior administration officials say Vice President Mike Pence has made it clear to groups and to GOP lawmakers that oppose abortion rights that the White House wants to defund Planned Parenthood in the health care bill to replace Obamacare.

Pence is scheduled to meet Friday with a variety of groups opposed to abortion rights at the White House. He has already made it clear that the emerging Affordable Care Act (ACA) replacement bill will defund Planned Parenthood. He will also discuss concerns among these advocates that Hyde Amendment language barring taxpayer funding of most abortions ‎through Medicaid be retained in the new bill. The groups opposed to abortion rights also want to see language in the bill that prevents the use of tax credits for abortions.

The current bill seeks this as a policy outcome, but such language may not survive a parliamentary challenge in the Senate, where opponents could argue it is a policy position that is not explicitly tied to raising or lowering federal spending. Policy initiatives unrelated to federal spending can be stricken from bills that are passed through Congress using the 51-vote majority reconciliation process. Reconciliation is the legislative procedure that prevents a filibuster of bills that conform to spending targets and/or include budget savings. Language that creates policy outside of explicit budget line items can be challenged in the Senate.

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I’ve long held that we owe the greatness of this country to a salutary blend between secular rules and moral values, a good working together of God and Caesar.

I've further maintained that Christian moral values induce behaviors that obviate the need for an excessive number of secular rules; they keep government from having to regulate moral behavior.

One reason the Constitution is so relatively simple is because, as John Adams himself said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, the two are necessary.

I've always seen the Establishment Clause, the very first words of the Bill of Rights, as the umbilical cord between our secular and religious laws, the religious being just as important as the secular because they are the source of our morals, virtues and values. Now we seem to be losing these.

Planned Parenthood is only the latest manifestation of our loss of a moral anchor.

Continue reading the full article at High Plains Pundit.