Thank God, President Trump has moved to bar facilities that provide abortions and abortion referrals from receiving federal Title X funding.  The reaction of those decrying the president's decision is revealing.

Forty-two CFR 59.5 specifies that federal family planning money may not be used to fund abortion services.  This is the law, dating back to 1970.  Whereas one would expect that Planned Parenthood and its allies would react to the president's directive by explaining that they are in full compliance and have been maintaining clearly separate internal accounts so as to assure that Title X money is not being used unlawfully, nothing of the sort is being said.  Instead, abortionists are throwing a temper tantrum as they shoot off vague hyperbolic insults and fail to defend their practices heretofore as within the statutory bounds of 42 CFR 59.5.

Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, contended about the Trump administration's decision:

This is an attempt to take away women's basic rights, period. Under this rule, people will not get the health care they need. They won't get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, or even general women's health exams.

David Stacy, government affairs director of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), exclaimed:

This is an unprecedented attack on millions of women and LGBTQ people who rely on health care facilities, including Planned Parenthood, for reproductive health care. The Trump-Pence Administration is once again attempting to undermine access to care for women and LGBTQ people, putting lives at risk.

And Washington state's Governor Jay Inslee protested:

If this administration insists on weaponizing the Title X program, I will work our legislative leaders to make sure that no matter what happens in D.C., every woman in Washington state has access to all the family planning and health care services she needs.

Planned Parenthood and its supporters are up in arms – but they have no leg to stand on, as the president has merely made action consistent with statutory word.  Whereas technically, entities such as Planned Parenthood may receive Title X funding and not use that funding toward abortions or referrals, the emotional and highly imprecise rant on the part of Planned Parenthood & Friends evidences that Title X funds were indeed making their way into the abortion agenda, as otherwise, the decidedly preferred defense would have been one of arguing that the funds are fully and transparently being kept away from abortion purposes by use of separate accounts.  The unfocused lashing out of the abortionists, reflective of an unwarranted feel of special entitlement, speaks for itself and amounts to nothing more than pleading the Fifth.

Abortion advocates assert that abortion is a woman's health right, and they dismiss any concern for the unborn baby.  People of faith know that this is disingenuous and downright wrong.  I would like to present a few important quotes on the subject from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchhik, a pre-eminent 20th-century leader of Orthodox Judaism and the mentor of my own rabbis:

I can never predict what modern society will come up with.  Everything is possible.  The most abnormal, obnoxious, repellent ideas may be introduced in the form of legislation to Congress.  And now, since it is modern to be liberal, it's quite in vogue to be heretical, so any law can be adopted.  The Supreme Court in America is the most unpredictable body.  Did you see, did you read carefully, the decision about abortion [Roe v. Wade]? ...

The birth of every child is an important event for the mother.  The birth of the first child is the greatest and most cathartic experience for a mother, if a woman is ready to be a mother.  Being a mother is not simple.  It is a physiological relationship, a psychological  relationship, a spiritual relationship.  More than that, it is a metaphysical relationship – somehow complete identification between mother and child.

That is why I cannot understand it, I cannot grasp it, to me it is something vulgar, this clamor of the liberals that abortion be permitted. It's not a clamor anymore – it's a legislated fact.

How can a mother kill her baby? I can't understand it, I cannot grasp it[.]

And, in a lecture that touched upon the worthlessness of secular, subjective ethics, Rabbi Soloveitchik went deeper and explained:

If the sinfulness of murder were only a result of our moral judgment, then why not permit abortions?  As a matter of fact, it happens in modern society.  Abortion is murder according to Jewish Law.  The fetus is alive.  The liberals of today don't like that position.  The liberals of today have simply lost the criterion of morality, what is moral and what is immoral; they are absolutely confused and perplexed.  ...

If murder is based solely on moral reasonableness and sensitivity, then why not allow euthanasia?  Left to its own conscience, society, little by little, simply destroys the very fabric of its morality.  Why not kill a person who is suffering from an incurable disease?  If euthanasia is permitted, then the road to murder is open.

The abortionist agenda is downright dishonest and extremely dangerous in more ways than we realize.  We are grateful that President Trump is reining in the abuses, and we pray that society will one day come to its senses and submit to that which is right and true.  

Avrohom Gordimer is chairman of the Rabbinic Circle at the Coalition for Jewish Values, a public policy institute reflecting traditional Jewish thought.  He serves on the editorial board of Jewish Action magazine; is a staff writer for the Cross-Currents website; and is a frequent contributor to Israel National News, Yated Ne'eman, and a host of other publications.  He is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America and the New York Bar, and he works as an account executive at a large Jewish organization based in Manhattan.  The views expressed in the above article are solely those of the writer.