Planned Parenthood Shouldn't Be Defunded, but the ERLC Should Be
I just read an “explainer” article by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) published in the Christian Index, and to no one's surprise, it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from the Southern Baptist Convention’s well-funded public relations department. It’s a cautiously worded, carefully scripted, spiritually neutered position paper disguised as righteous outrage.
It’s a magnum opus, a virtuosic performance, in moral hedging. At a time when the nation’s house of ethics is burning down, ERLC president, Brent Leatherwood, and his merry band of religious bureaucrats are busy arguing over whether the paint color is pink or ambrosia.
The article’s main objective is to convince Southern Baptists, once again, that now, NOW, is the time to finally defund Planned Parenthood. A noble enough effort, if this were 1994.
They tout the current political landscape—Republican House, Senate, and White House—as an opportunity to "follow through on those commitments" and pull federal funding from the nation's largest abortion provider. They cite the familiar horror—over 392,000 abortions performed in a single year, more than $699 million in government funding, international abortion evangelism, overbilling Medicaid, gender transitions for minors, and of course, the perennial defense of partial-birth abortion.
"Now is the time," Leatherwood says, to ensure "taxpayer resources aren’t going to this sort of horrific behavior and activity."
Horrific behavior and activity. That’s phrase the ERLC chooses to describe the industrial-scale slaughter of human children. That’s the big swing at the proverbial “Goliath.” A vague euphemism nestled in the safe confines of fiscal policy discussion. When you’re standing on top of a mountain of corpses, maybe the problem isn’t that your language is too strong.
The entire piece is built around the premise that defunding Planned Parenthood will somehow end its reign of terror as if it’s a rogue nonprofit sneaking funds out of Uncle Sam’s wallet, and not a state-sanctioned, culturally protected, blood-soaked institution embedded in the machinery of American bureaucracy. Defunding it is simply like trying to reform a death cult by revoking its bake sale permit.
No, the reality is far darker. Planned Parenthood is not simply misusing tax dollars—it is the modern-day high priest of Molech worship, complete with sterile altars, sacrificial instruments, and ceremonial language of "choice," "healthcare," and "liberation." It exists for one purpose, to profit off dismembered children and call it compassion.
Planned Parenthood is not a reckless or injudicious organization that conservatives or Christians should be able to opt out of funding for reasons of conscience. It is a malignant terrorist organization that stands opposed to basic, objective human decency and flourishing. It’s a death cult designed to kill the most innocent among us and should be treated as such.