The Republicans' Budget Proposal: Let the Innocent Suffer
By Sylus Smith
As November arrives, we're in for more heated arguments, absurdist grandstanding, and the sort of televised bloodsports that the Romans could have only dreamt of. It's budget season. Due to the self-induced chaos of the Republican caucus, little attention has been recently paid to a looming government shutdown. However, since House Republicans have finally elected a Speaker, it's time to return to what they want to do with their power. Given the extent of new abortion restrictions, an apt candidate arises for immediate analysis. There is, however, a disturbing trend that emerges from such investigation. Whilst several programs exist to help alleviate the human suffering caused by attacks on abortion rights, these programs now also face threats from the Speaker and the Republican-controlled Appropriations Committee.
Considering first the labyrinthine road taken to reach the elevation of Mike Johnson to the Speakership, it would seem fair to say that his positions are near to the caucus consensus: at least as much of a consensus as House Republicans are capable of forming. Given his previous obscurity, it is only fair to ask where he’s stood on pressing questions like abortion. One may turn to his words perhaps, when he described it as “a Holocaust”, or his belief in the necessity of maintaining “18th Century values.” But if actions are easier to trust, there’s always the Speaker’s background as a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, leading the charge to try and force the closure of Louisiana. More recently he co-sponsored a federal abortion ban, one ending the right at six weeks after conception.
We do not need to look at a hypothetical federal ban to know that a variety of recent state bans have raised a mountain of human costs. One is left to wonder how Republicans today plan to address the existing human costs their restrictions create. Perhaps they might begin by working toward prevention, arming people with the necessary knowledge to reduce the rate of undesired pregnancies? After all, such programs already exist in the form of Title X Family Planning. Better still, the program has a proven track record of success. Success not just in reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in unstable households, but also in other health measures like STD prevention. Despite this, Republicans want to stop funding the program entirely.
Perhaps there is some sentiment by which to insist upon the personal responsibility of adults, and thus with it the dismissal of a need to educate them. From such a thing we might at least draw the conclusion that there is a need to educate the youth, knowing the severe consequences of teen pregnancy. The answer is a resounding no, for Republicans insist upon wholly eliminating the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. Despite the historic successes of the program in achieving its mandate, it is now marked for elimination. This is despite the fact that teen pregnancies almost always precede a failure to finish school and crushing poverty. No argument can be made that they are approaching this from a different angle, as no funding is proposed for the traditional Republican alternative of abstinence-only education. If even teen pregnancy prevention is deemed unworthy of funding, then it is only fair to conclude that pregnancy prevention is not a priority at all.
If the Republican intent is not to mitigate undesirable pregnancies then maybe they would prefer to invest in good pregnancy outcomes. To this end, one of the most important tools for ensuring maternal and fetal health is prenatal screenings. For many rural communities, especially those with notable minority populations, independent organizations like Planned Parenthood are vital to ensuring access. They are prevented from fulfilling this function by the elimination of Title X Family Planning, and with it, hundreds of millions spent to support these exact efforts. The only result can be that these duties are now fully hoisted upon overburdened rural hospitals, and general neglect is made of those who cannot afford to go elsewhere for care. To permit such neglect would inevitably bring harm not just to the mother, but also to the fetus, whose innocence and helplessness Republicans are always prone to remind us of.
It is not just organizations like Planned Parenthood that will suffer. So too will the hospitals of Republicans’ own constituents. As hospitals around America worry about their inability to afford basic equipment, or even to keep the lights on, they are now expected to deal with more patients. On one hand, Republicans will drive masses of innocent women into desperation, frantically searching for answers to simple questions about their own health. Perhaps such a thing might be considered permissible if these hospitals were equipped for the task, but therein lies the callousness of it all. On the other hand, Republicans propose tens of millions be cut from the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant. Such a program serves a simple purpose, to provide funds so that beleaguered hospitals can provide this basic care.
But if quality medical care during the pregnancy isn’t a priority, perhaps Republicans have chosen to concentrate their attention on what comes after. Given the many risks this medical neglect carries, the need for quality care afterward becomes both more common and more serious. For this purpose the Healthy Start program exists, dedicating itself in particular to the reduction of infant deaths in areas above the national average. In this way it should serve as the perfect program for Republicans, being directly targeted and geared toward the benefit of the infants they claim to do all this in the name of. It should thus come as no surprise to the astute reader that they have proposed completely eliminating funding for the program. This at last begs the question, what program could be deserving, and what at all is to be done?
The answer is that no program is deserving in the eyes of House Republicans. Not pregnancy prevention, nor ensuring medical care to pregnant women, or even care for the fetuses they claim to do all this for. While women and children suffer, they hide behind vague speeches about the need to protect them. But in their actions, Republicans propose that we do nothing. Worse than that, they propose an end to the great work that previous Congresses have set into motion to address these very real needs. Even when the primary beneficiaries of these programs are their own constituents, Republicans in Congress do not care. The only way forward is to ensure they cannot continue hurting people, and that means working to vote every Republican out of office, no matter what.
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