Last month, before the August recess, the Senate took up legislation - introduced by my friend, Senator Ernst - that would have ended federal funding for Planned Parenthood, transferring its subsidies to other women’s and community health clinics.
Unfortunately, the bill failed on its first vote. But the questions raised by the Planned Parenthood scandal – and the challenges it presents to Congress and the American people – have only grown since then.
And yet, if you open a newspaper, click on the legacy media sites, and turn on the news… nothing. The major networks have gone dark on the videos over the last month. And major newspapers have scrubbed the scandal from their front pages.
Why the silence? Simple. They know it’s true, too. The media looked for the facts, and they found them, and they turned away. In the case of the Planned Parenthood undercover videos in the court of public opinion (as they taught me in law school), qui tacit consentire videtur: the media’s silence indicates their consent.
Despite the media blackout on this scandal, I am still optimistic that those of us who value every human life have an important oppurtunity to share the truth about Planned Parenthood, the inhumanity it practices, the laws it may be breaking, and the lies it tells. Americans deserve to know what evil is abroad in their land, and what good can be done to overcome it.
The history of our nation is the story of a good and loving people who stubbornly – if sometimes slowly – overcome narrow, prejudicial legacies. When presented with the Truth, Americans have always come to see and defend the innate dignity of our once-overlooked brothers and sisters – and welcome them out of the shadows, and into our hearts and our society.
Indeed, the gradual embrace of our youngest Americans is well underway, and gaining momentum all the time. With every Instagrammed ultrasound image… every overjoyed Facebook post… and every advance in embryology and obstetrics… Americans move closer to the truth about the unborn. And in the same way, every new undercover video released by the Center for Medical Progress is bringing us all a little closer to the truth about Planned Parenthood.
In coming weeks I plan to deliver a series of speeches that might help my colleagues and anyone else who might be listening come a little closer to the truth about both.
As I make the case against using taxpayer funds to facilitate, protect, and promote Planned Parenthood’s deceptions and violence, I hope my colleagues on the other side of these questions will join me from time to time. A good debate is always more fruitful than a monologue.
But as long as Planned Parenthood’s friends remain mute, I will endeavor to improve upon the silence, and in time, hopefully, to help improve upon our inadequate legal protections for the dignity of human life.
I know I am not alone in this effort, and I invite you to join me and add your voice to mine.
