June 16, 2020
There’s a first time for everything — including, it turns out, agreeing with Planned Parenthood. “This is literally,” the group’s acting president Alexis McGill Johnson said, “a life or death election.” She’s right. But America’s biggest abortion business must not have any use for the “life” part of that equation, announcing Monday that they’d officially endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president.
To most people, it was never a question of “if” — but the biggest surprise may be when. In 2016, the abortion titan wasted no time jumping into the ring for Hillary Clinton, who turned out to be the organization’s first official endorsement for president. This time around, Johnson and company waited until there was literally no other option to put whatever weight they have behind President Trump’s opponent. “Americans need a president who will empower women, families, and young people,” Johnson said. (Although no one is quite sure how killing a child is empowering it.)
Just over a year after Biden’s Hyde amendment flip-flop heard ’round the world, Planned Parenthood seems confident that even more spoils will be theirs for the taking under the former vice president, who’s recanted every moderate stance on the issue he ever held. Under his administration, Biden promises a return to international abortion funding, Title X dollars, taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, legalized infanticide, pro-abortion Supreme Court justices, and Obama-era strong-arm tactics against faith-based groups who object to abortion coverage in health care.
Any American who thinks Biden is a “moderate” option on life is mistaken, Johnson makes clear. “When he left the Senate, Vice President Joe Biden had a 100-percent voting record from Planned Parenthood Action Fund and has been clear he is ‘100 percent for sexual and reproductive health.’ And we are going to hold him to that.”
According to Forbes, they’ll have plenty of money to try. Based on financial reports, Planned Parenthood’s action arm is determined to spend triple what it did on Hillary Clinton, putting an astonishing $45 million on the table for the 2020 election. Thanks to the forced contributions from taxpayers — more than a half-billion dollars’ worth — Johnson can invest more in the political process than ever. And while her PAC can’t technically use tax dollars to lobby for Biden, it certainly gives them more flexibility to try.
Meanwhile, in a country locked in a coast-to-coast battle over abortion, aligning with Planned Parenthood means Biden’s veneer of reasonability is gone. The contrast between the two major candidates on life has never been starker or more revealing about where they want to take the nation. Donald Trump is “dangerous,” all right — but only to the radical agenda he’s spent three and a half years dismantling. If you want an end to that progress, then Planned Parenthood is right: Joe Biden’s your guy.
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.