From the New York Times…

The White House, concerned about the possible political repercussions of the Republican effort to defund Planned Parenthood, has proposed preserving federal payments to the group if it discontinues providing abortions.

The proposal, which was never made formally, has been rejected as an impossibility by officials at Planned Parenthood, which receives about $500 million annually in federal funding. That money helps pay for women’s health services the organization provides, not for abortion services.

THE FUNDING ALREADY DOES NOT PAY FOR ABORTIONS!

“Let’s be clear: Federal funds already do not pay for abortions,” Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said on Monday. “Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept. Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable.”

But guess who may actually be… oh god… a champion here…?

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I bet you got it wrong…

But the outreach to allies of Planned Parenthood is a glimpse of the internal struggle inside a White House torn between trying to satisfy the conservative base that elected President Trump and responding to the views of his daughter Ivanka Trump, who urged her father to tread carefully on the Planned Parenthood issue during the Republican primary contest.

Ms. Trump has no formal role in the administration, but as an informal adviser she has made women’s issues a focus. She has had a mixed record of success in the administration’s early days, but during the campaign, she was able to nudge Mr. Trump toward a nuanced view of Planned Parenthood’s work.

If Planned Parenthood ends up not being defunded, and abortion is left unaddressed (maintaining the status quo rather than criminalizing abortion outright), we might actually have Ivanka Trump to thank, at least in part.

And let’s be clear… the current status quo is utterly terrible, but it’s not as bad as what could happen: abortion being federally criminalized, which, as we know, is the goal of the right. The ultimate goal must be the total legalization, and preferably with government funding. But that’s going to be hard under the current administration. So now we have to fight to keep from losing what little ground we have…