Boehner Getting a Bum Rap on Pro-Life Cause?
WASHINGTON -- Many abortion opponents cheered the recent takedown of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, saying he didn't really fight for the pro-life cause. But not everyone agrees.
Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., is an ardent pro-life supporter in the halls of Congress. One of his main crusades is to stop government-funded abortions, something specifically disallowed under the Hyde Amendment.
"It gets encroached upon continually," Pittenger told CBN News. "We have to be vigilant and on guard to make sure that we don't allow that to happen."
The congressman recently took to the House floor to argue that states should be free to give Medicaid funds to health care providers who won't do abortions - unlike the money that goes to Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion provider in the country.
"Like in North Carolina, we have 634 clinics for women, whereas there are about nine clinics that are Planned Parenthood -- and of course those are abortion providers," he explained.
"So we could take that same money and put it in our own clinics for women," Pittenger concluded.
Ironically, it's been the pro-life cause and the move to stop taxpayer money from going to Planned Parenthood that brought Boehner to the point of feeling compelled to resign.
Conservatives out to defund Planned Parenthood thought the Ohio lawmaker wasn't with them enough in the fight.
But Pittenger, a good friend of Boehner's, said his fellow conservatives don't really understand just how conservative and pro-life Boehner really is.
"John Boehner did a remarkable job in our country," he said. "In fact, the pro-life movement says that he's been the strongest pro-life speaker in the House that we've had in modern history. So I commend him for that."
Pittenger said Boehner certainly isn't to blame for the "the Do-Nothing Congress," label.
"The last term we passed 387 bills, and they stayed on the desk of Harry Reid in the Senate," Pittenger noted. "This year we have already passed more legislation conservative legislation than any other time but one year in the last 40 years."
Unfortunately, most of that legislation dies in the Senate.
