The Republicans’ “Pledge for America” says the new majority will do both. But negotiations over the federal budget threaten to force the GOP, including its 87 House freshmen, to choose between them.
It’s a lesson in congressional reality that has Republicans struggling with how to vote — and what to do — when a divided government pits pledge against pledge.
“That’s a problem – and I mean, a real problem,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee’s budget and spending task force.
How would he vote on a budget that cuts spending but lacks the promised abortion restrictions? Jordan winces.
“We haven’t seen the finished product,” he said.
The House last month passed its version of the budget that would fund the government through September. The measure would cut spending by $61 billion and prohibit federal dollars from going to Planned Parenthood as long as the organization performs abortions. It also reinstates restrictions, lifted by President Barack Obama, on government money for any organization that funds abortions in foreign countries.
The abortion restrictions have almost no chance of being included in the spending plan that the Democrat-dominated Senate ultimately passes. That could be weeks from now despite a March 18 deadline that carries with it the threat of a partial government shutdown.
A compromise that could pass both the House and Senate will contain at least a good portion of the cuts that now-GOP freshmen promised during the campaign and say their constituents loudly demand. Slashing federal spending, they insist, is their No. 1 priority.
Restricting federal money for abortion providers comes a close second or third, as much a part of the GOP’s campaign “Pledge” as spending cuts and repealing Obama’s health care overhaul.
The new Republican majority has done plenty of fighting for what they promised, but getting their wish list through the entire Congress is a tougher task. The health care law repeal failed in the Senate. The House’s budget received a thorough scoffing from Senate Democratic leaders and Obama said he would veto it.
House Republicans say just having their debate last month went a long way toward satisfying their campaign promises.
In an emotional overnight session on the current year’s budget, the House voted 240-185 to block federal dollars from going to Planned Parenthood.
There was more.
The spending bill, before any amendments, reinstated a prohibition on federal money for any organization that uses its own funds for abortions performed in foreign countries. Obama lifted the restrictions in 2009.
Under current law, federal dollars may not be used for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.
Pro-choice lawmakers and groups said the Republican efforts on abortion amount to an attack on women and family-planning services. Democrats make the case that while Planned Parenthood performs abortions, the group uses federal money on health services for women who can’t afford it any other way.
Planned Parenthood has undertaken a formidable lobbying campaign to kick out the restrictions from the Senate bill.
Watching the negotiations from the House, some social conservatives were uncomfortable even talking about how they would vote should a newly negotiated budget pass the Senate and come to the House without the anti-abortion provisions.
If they vote against the new version, they also would say no to spending cuts they demanded.
If they vote for it, they would ditch, for now, the party’s anti-abortion promises.
Rep. Chris Smith, perhaps the House’s most fervently anti-abortion member, said he’d vote against any budget that doesn’t “preserve life.” Blocking money for Planned Parenthood also cuts spending, said Smith, R-N.J.
“There’s no reason to be divided. These are twin objectives,” Smith said, predicting many Republican freshmen opposed to abortion will vote with him.
Freshman Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., isn’t one of them. He opposes abortion. But he said he’d vote for a budget that lacks new restrictions on the procedure because current law already bans federal dollars from being used for most abortions. Banning taxpayer dollars from going to Planned Parenthood, he said, should be a battle for another day if it comes to a choice.
“If we’re staying with that current policy, I think we’d still be safe,” Schweikert said. “Because for me, it’s substantially about the fiscal position” he took in last year’s elections when it came to reining in the federal deficit.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press
5 thoughts on “Anti-abortion plans create headache for Republicans”
“Do you have daughters Carl?” …extract from post
Reading your trials and tribulations concerning husbands, kids etc., I’m glad my wife and I married 44 years never had children. We didn’t contribute to further planetary pollution of too many humanoids and not enough resources.
I have three brothers and one sister, four of us are married with me the longest and “none” of us had children. : |
As far as bringing down the number of slaves via education, it’s a lost cause because planetary oligarchs with a globalist agenda are reducing the greater number of people to simply serfs on their global planatation. We’re witnessing the birth of corpo-fascist feudalism on a planetary scale.
Wages and the standard of living are being leveled ever lower on a worldwide basis. Since 2000 to present all commodities including fuel, food, transportation, property taxes etc. have risen by an average of 88%. Add 12% to that figure you and get that everything costs twice as much as it did prior to Bush/cheney’s ascendancy to office. We’ve been taken out by war profiteers and leaders that have a love affair with billionaires and are more than willing to simply be their running dog slaves all for a few dollars, yuan, euros or shekels more. : |
Carl Nemo **==
Carl, I believe that every woman living in any nation must determine the agenda of their future husbands very carefully. In my generation, many of my age gals married for the right reasons with men they truly loved but saw the emotion fade quickly as both became their natural selves.Being an addicted reader, I knew that women cannot change their men to fit their desires. I also had no illusion of what to expect from a husband.
I have always been honest about my good and bad points and made many commitments of what was expected from me as a wife and mother. My husband wanted sons and I had girls. He had a son from a previous marriage and ignored the poor kids from the beginning. After 5 years, I saw the word hypocrite growing deeper in the face of my husband. I did not react as I should have but we had a happy home with successful children who were good looking, smart and eager to learn.
I was not a brood mare and tried to make it clear and failed. During the 1964 campaign I really went to work on the election as Goldwater stood for my most important issues. I used our home as a place to raise funds for the campaign and even allowed Wayne to take over my front yard for his own parties. I made extra money formatting screen plays for writers and even worked on costuming local theater groups. I got involved in the Mother’s Clubs in two schools and gave swimming lessons to many of the city kids.
The pressure to have sons got to me and I had had enough of this pressure and excused myself from fighting. I was never a slave and was quite able to move my kids to another location. Outside of my marriage, I was happy in my world but I am not a fighter.
Many of my gal friends had been divorced and lived from one support payment to the next one and that smelled to me like slavery. My stepson was in the Army and the girls still in school and I requested a divorce. I decided to trade my beautiful home and Caddy convertible for a cheap small house in another area. I sold some jewelry and was independent again. A friend of mine had a daughter who ended up with the Manson family and we decided to write up some of the signs of this girl’s changes. We agreed that her girl had been looking for Jesus and found him with Charlie and drugs. This was a familiar problem at the time and we worked it all out at home with the concept that God is a home grown concept to be used when necessary and not to be found in some hippie joint in Berkeley.
My husband kept coming home whining about women in general and me in particular. He never managed to locate a strong marriage and died a couple of years ago with wife number 5. He had nothing to do with the kids and they apparently didn’t miss him. I chose not to marry again because my life was filled with work every two years when the House was campaigning.
I filled my love life with long respectful arrangements and never felt the need to take on a new family situation. I had been raped at 12 and going through some psychological help ended up believing that I was not worthy of marriage. This is common with women and I accepted it and went on building political action groups and working with musical productions to perform my kind of stuff. My girls discovered Shakespeare and that took the rest of our time when not at school or working.
I have mentioned a great book on the subject of slavery where the women became owned by the victors of many wars. Women were always the spoils after property and valuables were sold off. Women won the chance at having their children fed and sheltered. “Sex and War” is a read well worth the time. I recommended it to my girls and granddaughter. I saw the author interviewed on one of the talk shows and I ordered it. I reviewed it here at CHB but got no response.
Do you have daughters Carl? Surviving as women is a hell of a challenge especially today. Not all of us are natural mothers but all can share their stories with other young women. As long as the Bible is declared as the true story of creation, women will never be equal. I miss the daily contact with a male mate but cannot imagine trying to marry again. My two best friends are two gay men who have been a couple for 40 years. They have known my kids since birth and are closer than any family members. They will be here next weekend and want to see what I am doing now that I’m out of Arizona.
Thank you for the information on slavery. Only through education can we bring down those numbers.
Why am I always tempted to ask pro-life Christian men to keep their pants on when out of the house? These men live in a world of trying to cancel all the sins they committed before they saw the light and were saved. These fools want into every nasty thing anyone else does and they will declare an inquisition if the time comes to prohibit the abortions under the Constitution.
Let’s see, if women are sinful and evil and need to be protected from ever making a choice of their own future actions, then why not buy us as some kind of slave? Sign a contract that our children will be financially supported until they get out of college? That contract will have to cover all injuries, hospital stays, dental bills over and above their education and proper feeding.
After seeing the horrors of the War on Drugs and how foolish American men act when they find themselves unable to stop drugs even in their own homes. I lived through those years before Roe v Wade and had many close friends who had to fly to France for a safe abortion. The poorer girls forked out $600 for a quickie procedure in a dirty motel in Mexico. Many did not survive. Sure several here consider that payment for sinning. My husband used to say “You are my wife and will have my children.” Well I even took one from his first wife because I loved that kid…..still do.
If these Republicans continue to threaten with federal laws, then my next effort will be to destroy their efforts for success. I am not armed and I am one hell of a lot smarter than Palin, Huckabee and/or Bachman. All I can say is those Republican two-faced men of God had better keep it in their pants because if I find out they were dangling lust anywhere, I will expose them.
A number of the GOP House and Senate members are leaving their jobs and I am delighted that those folks ill get out of my sights. I keep reading that the Secular Humanists are gaining on the ChristIans and I love the idea of equality in all parts of our political activity.
These same American men screw around constantly but when they are caught producing a fetus in someone whose name is missing; it is time to shut them up and demand a proper reaction. Make these men pay for their extramarital affairs and sign a contract to cover their arses, and I can guarantee you that abortions will be cheap. clean, and available.
Financing Family Planning has saved the lives of many women and fetuses.I would be more than willing to continue the financing of these clinics. The problem is that my name would be printed all over the internet as an enabler of baby murders. American values must be the epitome of hypocrisy.
These Republican two-faced idiots want to hold women as hostages while using them as brood mares for the rest of their lives. I eee no reason for any woman who marry and I point out that 51% of their marriages will end up in divorce court and those kids will seldom see a happy family party again.
Even here at CHB, there are few men who seem to be able to work to support their children. The amount of whining about everything takes up precious time that could be used making a happy environment at home.
The concerted effort to take money from others to pay their bills is as close to evil as I can imagine. Taking anything not earned is a character flaw and one I have been aware of for most of my life. I married a man I loved dearly but soon it was apparent he wanted a redistrivbution of wealth to give himself an equal break. The whining got so bad I bought a sound system and hundreds of disks of opera. He whined on his secretaries shoulder and she got pregnant. After about 3 minutes of thought, I threw him out knowing I would never receive a penny of support. After 5 wives, the poor bastard got very sick and the kids wanted me to take him home as a patient. He never stopped whining and I told the kids that if they didn’t take care of him, I would shoot him dead.
No, I’m not a cold hearted bitch and over the years had some wonderful love affairs that last over 15 years each. I took care of my own body and was clipped so as not to conceive again. I get one go-around in his life and I will hear no more whining. I have been a member of Republicans for choice and I support them simply to keep abortions legal. I loved my babies and my marriage been more stable, I would have had more kids. It became a punishment rather than a privilege to mother my brood.
There are enough unwanted babies born every month to ignorant uneducated young girls who end up selling their bodies for money. My religious grandmother supported one of the early Planned Parethood clinics in Santa Monica.
“Let’s see, if women are sinful and evil and need to be protected from ever making a choice of their own future actions, then why not buy us as some kind of slave?” …extract from post
That’s kind of along the lines of Muslim beliefs concerning women and believe it or not it permeates through male society worldwide. Seemingly 1.6 billion of them can’t be wrong…no? / : | Depending on a man’s resources I believe he can have up to four wives and a host of concubines that have been acquired through various means including via a ‘purchase’. A concubine is a slave and a sexual one at that. Modern Muslims will say this is part of the old ways, but rest assured it is not. It’s still practiced and thriving in the regions that have a preponderance of Muslims especially the North African rim nations then down to to the “Horn of Africa”; ie., Somalia and across to the Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and beyond.
It’s estimated by Interpol that up to 100,000 white European women disappear annually into the bowels of slavery sponsored by arabic culture and religious customs concerning this practice.
There’s an estimated 12-70 million ‘slaves’ in the world today many if not most being women and children. Modern Saudi Arabia has an estimated 300,000. They target India an the Philippines both areas of great poverty for their acquistions. Remember too the Saudi’s are like ‘family’ to the Bushistas; interesting companions indeed I must say…?! / : |
I thought I’d supply a link as to how women are perceived disrespectfully by Islam.
https://www.faithfreedom.org/articles/women-in-islam/how-women-are-perceived-disrespectfully-in-islam/
Rather than simply bash Islam I must remind women that this type of skewed, infectious, abusive logic is everso convenient to knuckle-dragging male troglodytes wherever that look upon women as simply a vessel for their pleasures and abuse. It’s simple as that and it’s linked to testosterone, the most dangerous molecular compound on the planet run amok. It’s linked to the territorial imperative, endless wars of acquisition for resources and so too the plunder of an enemy’s wealth and women.
I believe Genghis Khan best summed it up in terms of his conquests:
*****
“The Greatest Pleasure is to vanquish your enemies, and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and to so see those dear to them bathed with tears, to ride their horses and to clasp to your bosom their wive’s and daughter’s”…
Temujin (Ghenghis Khan)
*****
If moderns think such drives have been relegated to the ashbin of history then they are in for a big surprise. In the event the U.S. is eventually vanquished by the caliber of aforementioned troglodytes there won’t be any Marshall Plan to reconstuct our nation, but it will simply be “to the victor goes the spoils of war”. : |
Western ‘feelgood’ perceptions of “women’s rights’ represents the minority opinion when canvassed on a worldwide basis. It’s simply the luxury found in decadent, overly educated Western societies. My comments are not to be construed as approval or an apologia, but simply that of “real -politik” as to how the world turns. Disrespect my thoughts at your own peril.
Carl Nemo **==
A followup Wiki link to expand one’s knowledge base on this subject.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
This link references and estimate 12-27 million slave worldwide, but a U.N. released report within the past five years estimated the world’s slave population of all types to as high as 70 million which I used for the higher limit.
Slavery is alive and well in these so-called ‘modern times’ setting aside the focus on women. Most Americans have become simply wage/tax slaves without an owner to provide shelter and housing; leaving even those needs to the indentured citizens as a function of government policies gone bad to now run amok.
Carl Nemo **==
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