GOP presidential candidate John McCain sounded more like a Democratic presidential candidate (a recurring trend) when he joined the Left's oil industry bashers a few weeks ago. Asked by a North Carolina voter whether he supported a Jimmy Carter-era windfall profits tax, McCain responded: "Um, I don't like obscene profits being made anywhere -- and I'd be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax -- that's not what bothers me -- but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people or industries or corporations that are distorting the market."
Here's an idea for all the hand-wringing GOP strategists in Washington wondering what it will take to win back disgusted economic and social conservatives: How about a Republican presidential candidate who will talk about the tax-subsidized abortion industry the way McCain talks about the oil industry?
In April, the annual report for Planned Parenthood Federation of America revealed that the abortion giant had a total income of $1.02 billion -- with reported profits of nearly $115 million. Taxpayers kick in more than $336 million worth of government grants and contracts at both the state and federal levels. That's a third of Planned Parenthood's budget.
And what market-distorting results do we get for those government incentives? In 2006 alone: 289,750 abortions.
Oil execs, tobacco execs, banking execs, pharmaceutical company execs and baseball players have all been hauled up before Congress for highly publicized whippings by crusading lawmakers. But the executives of Planned Parenthood have escaped government scrutiny and public accountability for their predatory behavior, dangerous medical practices, deception and deadly windfall.
In Washington, D.C., the family of 13-year-old Shantese Butler filed a $50 million suit against Planned Parenthood after a botched abortion left the girl permanently injured and infertile. Students for Life of America reports that Shantese was left with "severe abdominal bleeding, severe vaginal injury, severe injury to the cervix, significant uterine perforation and a small bowel tear." In addition, parts of the unborn child were found inside Shantese's abdomen.
In Nebraska, Planned Parenthood refused to disclose the terms of a settlement with another victim whose botched abortion resulted in a perforated uterus, massive blood loss, an emergency hysterectomy, permanent infertility, seizures, and lifelong pain and suffering. According to the suit obtained by Life News, the woman instructed the abortionist and his assistants to stop, but was told: "We can't stop." The Planned Parenthood employees held her down to complete the procedure.
Where's the subpoena-wielding Henry Waxman? Can Arlen Specter spare a moment from investigating the New England Patriots to probe Planned Parenthood's efforts to advise underage teens on how to circumvent parental notification laws to secretly obtain RU-486, the abortion drug cocktail? Where is the concern for the women and children who were mistreated by Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas, where Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline has filed a 107-count criminal complaint against the abortion racket, with charges ranging from falsifying documents to performing illegal late-term abortions?
And where are Nancy Pelosi and the For The Children brigade to investigate the shocking evidence of Planned Parenthood's nefariousness exposed by undercover student journalist Lila Rose?
Last year, Rose caught a Planned Parenthood official encouraging a female minor to evade statutory rape laws in order to obtain an abortion in California. In February, Rose released undercover tapes of her discussion with an Idaho Planned Parenthood official eager to accept money from a racist donor who wanted his funds earmarked for aborting black babies. In April, she released video of clinic officials in New Mexico and Oklahoma willing to take money from a blatantly racist donor. One Planned Parenthood staffer admits that "for whatever reason, we'll accept the money."
For whatever reason, Washington has turned a blind bipartisan eye to this bloody, government-funded business -- and pro-life, limited-government conservatives in the Beltway have gone along with subsidizing it. "Obscene profits," indeed.