Defund It Already

Early last September, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) polled its members — more than 150 of the most conservative congressmen in the House of Representatives — and asked them to list their priorities for a bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. According to a copy of the poll obtained by National Review, their top priority, by far, was removing funding from Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States.

Trying to defund Planned Parenthood is perhaps the promise Republican politicians have made most consistently to their voters over the last decade, and for good reason: The group performed 332,757 abortions last fiscal year alone, more than one-third of the estimated number of annual abortions in the U.S. But despite Republicans controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House for the preceding two years, the last Congress ended with President Donald Trump signing a spending bill that continued funding Planned Parenthood to the tune of about $500 million.

Shortly after that RSC poll was conducted, House speaker Paul Ryan met with GOP caucus leaders to discuss the draft appropriations bill. A Republican aide with knowledge of the meeting tells National Review that Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina, then chairman of the RSC, brought up the poll results, along with the party’s continual promise to defund Planned Parenthood, and asked whether defunding would be prioritized in the legislation.

The answer was no. In fact, some Republicans didn’t even want voters to know that so many GOP congressmen placed defunding Planned Parenthood at the top of the party’s list of legislative priorities. Representative Tom MacArthur — a Re­publi­can who at the time was facing a tough reelection battle in a moderate New Jersey district, a race he ended up losing — lobbied heavily at the meeting to keep the survey results private. “If this thing gets out, it will kill me,” he said, according to the GOP aide. His wish was granted; the full results aren’t available to the public.

One longtime leader in the anti-abortion movement describes Ryan as “one of the most pro-life speakers we could ever have,” but according to the GOP aide, even the former speaker downplayed the issue, telling members at the meeting that they needed to “keep their eye on the ball.” He pointed instead to the Trump administration’s proposed Department of Health and Human Services rule that would remove Planned Parenthood from the Title X family-planning program, which has funded the group since 1970 and currently provides it about $60 million a year. (Most of the group’s federal funding comes in the form of Medicaid reimbursements rather than through Title X.) That rule has yet to go into effect. A spokesperson for Ryan declined to comment on the meeting.