CSMonitor: “Planned Parenthood battle signals fresh twist in abortion wars”

State-level efforts to ban or restrict abortion and protect unborn children aren’t the only exciting things going on on a state level these days. We will fight them on the beaches and on the landing grounds, right? Mark Guarino over at CSMonitor has the second piece I have seen this week discussing the significance of the effort to defund Planned Parenthood:

An unprecedented number of states are targeting funding for abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood. The farthest-reaching effort, in Indiana, is facing a legal challenge.

The campaign against Planned Parenthood from Congress to Kansas is part of the broadest legislative attack against funding for abortion services since abortion became legal in 1973, say activists.

[…]

“We’ve never seen this number of attacks [on abortion providers’ funding] in one year,” says Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate with the Guttmacher Institute in Washington, which advocates affordable reproductive health care. “Usually, it’s a couple of states. This is very different.”

Has anyone else noticed that nearly every time an abortion supporter is quoted in the media these days, they sound utterly beleaguered and exasperated? I certainly have.

The effort to attack Planned Parenthood’s financing received a major boost earlier this year, with the launching of Expose Planned Parenthood – a coalition of antiabortion groups that alleged Planned Parenthood colluded in the sexual exploitation of minors. One of the groups in the campaign released “sting” videos that it said provided evidence of this collusion.

The coalition called for Planned Parenthood’s defunding by Congress. House Republicans responded by pushing to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood in the 2011 budget, though they eventually failed.

Since then, states have picked up the torch.

Happy to help. We all do what we can.

Indiana, of course, is where all eyes are turned right now. I’m still surprised no one in the media has commented on the audacity of Planned Parenthood of Indiana to sue to maintain their government funding, as if they are entitled to taxpayer dollars. Someone should point out to CEO Betty Cockrum that the “entitlement” in entitlement programs like Medicaid is for the poor, not for big, wealthy operations like PP. Then again, this is the woman who could defend her organization with a straight face after this: