I doubt that you can give Congress or even most church charities 60 million dollars and not, through some "accounting trick" end up paying money for someone's mistress' abortion. With that said, I've yet to see anyone offer proof that Planet Parenthood systematically used such accounting tricks.
I think, given this comment and TheDrake's general agnst, I must not be clearly expressing myself. By "accounting trick" I'm not accusing anyone of nefariousness or fraud. I do not mean that someone has set up an account labelled, "general marketing expense" that they use to make payments to their mistress. I just mean that the allocation of funds is permitted - by accounting standards - to be a more than a bit of a farce.
If you have a budget for 2019, that say's you're going to spend your $60 million dollar budget with $50 million for Task A and $10 million for Task B, and you get an unexpected donation of $20 million in November (after you already spent $45 million for Task A) specifically for Task A, it's an "accounting trick" that allows you to go forward with a final spend of $50 million for Task A and $30 million for Task B, because you can allocate the already spent funds to the new donation and "free up" the general funds you used previously. Even though the donee wanted you to spend more on Task A, you had sufficient assets to "replace" the general funds with designated funds, and what they got was more funds on Task B. Granted this is a one sided example (intentionally to show the principal).
There is nothing illegal about that, and the accounting rules allow it. But it doesn't sit right with a lot of people, and particularly for those with moral objections the sophistry can't cleanse the reality that after the grants are received the amount to be spent on abortion activities increases.
"As you may recall, Obama passed a rule in Dec. 2016 that prohibited states from allocating the funds away from abortion providers, and Congress overruled the rule early in 2017. "
Obama may tried to invite such tricks, but Obama is not Planned Parenthood. And there's not much time between Dec 2016 and early 2017,
Yes, but the point is that there has been an ongoing struggle between those who want to expand the use of federal funds for abortions, and couldn't care less that the law says otherwise, and those who don't want any federal funds going to increase abortion funding. This example really doesn't brook a "middle ground" and certainly not one that relies on sophistry.
As I've said before, I don't have a problem with federal funds being used for abortion, but that is not what the law says today and there are a lot of people for whom that would be a serious moral problem. Ergo, this is one that should be decided by political will, not trickery and court action.
" The whole fight is about PP,"
Oh, on that I agree. PP is the target, and I think for at least some of the PP opponents, the real war is against birth control, not abortion.
Maybe, but I haven't met anyone in years that seriously objected to birth control. This may be one that varies based on yhour local community.
I doubt, for example, that someone who makes Crunch's brothers-keeper arguments against funding distribution of birth control, really gives a floundering frack about fetal lives and rights.
That's a very uncharitable view of Crunch, and one that I doubt would play out in reality. There's nothing immoral about being a libertarian and believing that no one can rightfully be required to support another economically (and oddly, that's really just a facet of the entire pro choice position - is it not? - The mother can not be required to support the fetus against her objection). It seems a little inconsistent to me to both argue for choice over birth/abortion and for being required to support other persons over your objections? Does it not?
Do you dispute that PP has distributed birth control value well in excess of its yearly intake?
I don't know what that means. As I said before, as a matter of economics birth control is a net loss for the country.
Whether or not PP has used the accounting tricks that you claim (I've yet to see evidence of it but I acknowledge the possibility) that by distributing birth control, PP has prevented more abortions than all pro-life groups put together?
The evidence would be if they've spent even one dollar more on abortion than they would have/could have without the birth control subsidies.