Abortion opponents divided over shutdown strategy

But some activists are OK with allowing a government shutdown unless President Obama signs a spending bill defunding Planned Parenthood, a scenario that a group of House conservatives are pushing, while others want to stay focused on abortion-restricting bills that could bring them much more success over the long term.

Still others want Congress to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, but refuse to draw a line in the sand over whether Republicans should turn it into an ultimatum.

“I think there is some division — it’s a division on strategy,” said Tom McClusky, a lobbyist for March for Life Action.

Earlier this month, March for Life signed onto a letter with about 60 other groups asking House leaders to attach a measure stripping all taxpayer funds from Planned Parenthood in “must-pass” legislation.

The letter didn’t say the anti-abortion groups would ultimately oppose any spending bill that continues funding Planned Parenthood, which Heritage Action and some others on the Right have vowed to do. But it didn’t say the groups would support such a bill, either.

Some major players in the anti-abortion movement notably didn’t sign on, including the National Right to Life Committee and Americans United for Life. The National Right to Life Committee didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday, but its legislative director, Douglas Johnson, noted recently that the Senate lacks the votes to block Planned Parenthood’s funds and that abortions would continue anyway.

Ovide Lamontagne, general counsel for Americans United for Life, said his group is neither endorsing nor condemning a defund-Planned-Parenthood-or-government-shutdown approach.

“How that’s resolved is up to the politicians to decide,” he said. “You have to ask politicians that.”

House Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team are trying this week to tamp down an effort by conservatives to insist a bill to fund the government in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 stops giving roughly $500 million to Planned Parenthood annually, mostly through Medicaid and Title 10 family planning funds.

The effort was prompted by a recent series of undercover videos showing top Planned Parenthood officials discussing how some clinics provide aborted fetal tissue for medical research.

Republican leaders are eager to avoid another government shutdown, such as the one in 2013 over defunding Obamacare. Boehner has told conservatives that shutting down the government wouldn’t ensure Planned Parenthood stops getting taxpayer dollars. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called it an “exercise in futility.”

They have reason to be nervous, as polls find that large majorities of Americans prioritize funding the government over defunding Planned Parenthood.

Seventy-one percent of respondents to a CNN poll released Monday said it’s most important for Congress to keep the government funded, while just 22 percent said defunding Planned Parenthood should be the top priority.

And even more Americans want lawmakers to keep the government funded now compared with the 2013 shutdown battle. Back then, a CNN poll showed that 60 percent prioritized funding the government over undermining Obamacare.

As part of an effort to placate conservatives, House leaders are holding a Friday vote on a bill from Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., withholding federal funds from Planned Parenthood for one year. That is disappointing to anti-abortion groups who want Republicans to make defunding Planned Parenthood a make-or-break issue.

“The bottom line is while we support Black’s bill and we support some of these stand-alone bills, we think strategically just having a stand-alone vote does nothing to push the issue forward,” said David Christensen, a lobbyist for the Family Research Council.

The council led the letter to leadership asking for “must-pass” legislation to also defund Planned Parenthood. The point of it, Christensen said, was to pressure House Republicans to pass a defunding bill the Senate is forced to take up, ensuring that Democrats and moderate Republicans have to go on record supporting or opposing it.

If the House sent a spending bill over to the Senate with a defunding measure attached, it’s likely Republicans wouldn’t be able to muster the 60 votes they would need to pass it. But spelling out what should happen after that would be “premature,” Christensen said.

“We think the first step should be that the House acts, sends it over to the Senate,” he said. “We think until that happens in the House, exactly explaining the next step would be premature.”

For groups more focused on getting abortion opponents elected to office than on getting restrictions on the procedure passed, waging a major spending war over defunding Planned Parenthood makes more sense strategically. Forcing votes in the House and Senate gives the groups a record they can attack in political ads.

Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect anti-abortion female candidates, signed onto the Family Research Council letter. Chuck Donovan, president of the group’s research arm, wrote in National Review over the weekend that defunding Planned Parenthood “is a tall mountain worth climbing.”

Even if Senate Republicans fail to gain enough votes for a bill defunding the group, simply taking up such a bill would make the undercover videos a “turning point” in the abortion wars, Donovan wrote.

“‘Moving on,’ as liberals like to do from the latest policy or personal disaster, will not happen this time,” he wrote. “And only a vote with real teeth will focus the public mind on this singular issue.”

To McClusky, insisting on defunding Planned Parenthood, even if it results in a government shutdown, also will rally the Republican anti-abortion base.

“I think for activists we’re reaching a breaking point of sometimes you’ve just got to fight,” he said. “I think right now for those who are pro-life, we need to know we have fighters up in Congress.”

• The author is related by marriage to a board member of Americans United for Life.