Who's the Extremist Now?

William McGurn is fast becoming Noman's favorite columnist.  He comments today on liberal ideologues' ploy to blame last week's impending government shutdown on tea-party ideologues, when it was they who were willing to shut it down in order to defend (rather than defund) Planned Parenthood's place at the federal government's liberal feeding trough.

[O]n Planned Parenthood funding, [John Boehner] has secured something that those concerned about restoring these contentious issues to the people should appreciate: an agreement that the Senate will vote on a separate measure to defund Planned Parenthood.

Surely it tells you something about who the real extremists are that an up or down vote is deemed a concession. In an appearance at a rally before the deal, Mr. Schumer vowed that any bill taking taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood would "never, never, never" pass the Senate. In the normal way of doing things, it wouldn't even have come up for a vote.

Most Americans, it is probably safe to say, have no idea that we are talking about an organization that performed 332,278 abortions in 2009—one abortion every 95 seconds. Planned Parenthood counters that no federal dollars go to abortion, but Americans are not stupid. They know money is fungible.

As for serving pregnant women, that would be worth some congressional attention too. Planned Parenthood's own numbers show that more than 97% of pregnant women it treated were given abortions—against fewer than 3% who received nonabortion services such as adoption or prenatal care.

Think about it.  In 2009, this taxpayer funded organization ended 332,278 human lives in the womb.  97% of the women who went to it for "counseling" prevented their own developing children from ever seeing the light of day.  Try explaining, without sounding imbecilic, casuistic or disingenuous, why defending this practice is mainstream, and fighting to merely stop funding it with taxpayer dollars is extreme.  (Keep in mind that the public never voted to decriminalize abortion in the first place.  That was done by a 7-2 vote of the Supreme Court.)

If you can, congratulations of a sort are in order. You are certainly made of the right stuff to become a politician, lawyer, or community organizer.  And all those jobs pay very well.